Torrents of War

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THE TORRENTS OF

WAR BY IGOR SENTJURC TRANSLATED* FROM THE GERMAN BY ERIC MOSBACHER *THE U.S. EDITION CONTAINS MINOR ADDITIONS AND RESTORATIONS BY ELSIE STERN OF CERTAIN PASSAGES OMITTED FROM THE BASIC TRANSLATION.

Part I THE BATTLE

The First Casualty Men and equipment to the strength of a full battalion will be provided by the Depot Battalion, 93rd Grenadier Division, for drafting to the eastern front. Departure June 30, 1943, 1240 hours. Detraining station Tomarovka (White Russia). Expected date of arrival, July 4. Three officers, five N.C.O.'s and forty-six men now attached to the 93rd Grenadier Division will be posted to the assault battalion. Rations for five days will be taken. (Extracts from divisional movement orders)

I Dr. Karl Braun, by rank a lieutenant, stood by the barrier at the station. He had a headache, which the loud, if tuneful, music of the military band did nothing to improve. A sharp, piercing voice shouted: " 'Shun! Stand at ease! 'Shun!" Heels clicked. "Eyes right! Eyes front! Stand at ease!" The brass instruments glittered in the sunshine. The Radetzky March, Braun muttered. Nothing but Austrians. Boom, boom, boom, went the big drum. The drummer took no notice of Braun's aching head; he had a round, red, perspiring face, a pointed nose that did not fit in with the rest of his features, and projecting teeth. Each blow of his fat round drumstick descended on Braun's cranium with a sickening thud. Boom! Boom! Boom! a pause, then Boom! Boom! Boom! A military policeman addressed the crowd pressing at the barrier with the gentleness of an absent-minded father: "Keep back there, please, keep back." He had a marked accent. Another Austrian, Braun said to himself. Nothing but Austrians. "What a long time it's taking," said a woman's voice behind him. "The poor soldiers, how they must be perspiring," another answered. If only his head would stop aching. And that damned rat-faced drummer would stop ... It had been a wonderful evening, but the result was unfortunately a hangover. Erika had laughed and laughed, throwing back her head and displaying to all the world two perfect rows of shamelessly white teeth. She always did that and it was a luxury she could well afford. ("I've never been to the dentist in my life, really I haven't. I've never even had so much as a filling, I don't even know what a dentist's chair is like.") She had rocked with laughter, though nobody had the slightest idea what she was laughing about; she did it only to show her teeth. Never mind, it had been a wonderful evening. She had held in her hand her long-stemmed glass of cheap champagne— the glasses had been borrowed from Frau Kurz next door— and beat time to the music from the gramophone. The Bolero Tango, the Negro Rumba, she had round knees, for heaven's sake not quite so loud, the Schuberts down below have tapped on the ceiling twice already, never mind, let them, after all I'm leaving for the front tomorrow, doesn't that justify a little exuberance? Inge had begun singing "It's a Long Way Home" but suddenly stopped, stared in front of her as if lost in thought, muttered something, emptied her glass (he had hoped she would not smash it against the wall, as she was fond of doing) and then sang "The Stars that Shine in Germany,"

but neither that nor "It's a Long Way Home" fitted in with "The Red Lamps of St. Pauli" that was coming from the gramophone. So she had decided to dance. She started undressing, and nobody took any notice or tried to stop her. She had some difficulty with her brassiere, it got caught in something, and she concentrated on it with her serious, thoughtful face. At last she got rid of the thing and flung it into a corner; she looked quite attractive, though she was over thirty and had led a pretty dissolute life since her husband, a parachutist, had been reported missing in Crete. The medical officer in the corner—Braun hardly knew him and had no idea how he had got to his farewell party—said: "Look out, now she's going to climb on the table." That was just what Braun was afraid she was going to do; the table was wobbly, and if she danced on it it would probably collapse. She had quite a good figure—well covered, but not to excess. The expected disaster did not occur, however; she climbed on a chair, and when she tried to step onto the table the chair toppled over and she with it. For a time she remained seated on the floor. Then she lay down and said: "Quiet, everybody, please. I want to sleep." She fumbled for her dress and petticoat, covered herself with them, and went to sleep. Who was it had taken her home? He, Braun, had been awakened by a familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Darling!" it had said, and then again: "Get up, darling, it's time to get up." He had got up, and it was high time, and Erika had prepared breakfast. Her husband was away on a duty trip. The room was in a state of chaos, he had no time to tidy it. Erika said that she hadn't either. Let the landlady see to it. She was used to trouble. If only his head would stop aching. The voice again called out: " 'Shun! Eyes right!" This time it was the real thing. The band had stopped playing, and the voice could be heard handing over the parade. The major to whom the parade was handed over was small and fat and his boots gleamed in the sunshine. He made a speech in a sharp, high-pitched voice. Two or three women began to sob. A pigeon started pecking about on the empty space in front of the lined-up men, more pigeons joined in, and suddenly they all flew away; for a moment the major's voice was drowned by the whir of their wings. They flew in a semicircle and settled on the eaves of the old house opposite the station. The woman at the sausage stall listened to the major's speech, resting her thick arms on the counter and with her mouth wide open, displaying a gold tooth. She struck at a fly with her hand, said something in reply to somebody, and the sky overhead was high and blue. The major's speech drew to an end. It was very hot, and Braun waited for one of the soldiers to faint, which was liable to happen in this weather. But nothing happened, and the band started playing again. This time it was "Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles," and Braun took his hand out of his trouser pocket and stood to attention. More and more women were crying now, and many joined in the singing. They also sang the Nazi anthem, and it was very solemn and moving. Tears poured down the cheeks of a young woman standing at the barrier. She joined in the singing, and her voice was high, penetrating and harsh, as if there were some broken glass in her throat, and tears trickled from her nose to her chin and from there to her dress, and every tear made a dark little spot. She stood as stiff as the soldiers, and it was obvious how proud she was at being able to weep because her husband or fiance or whoever he was was going to war. Oh, for a glass of soda water. The barrier was opened, and the troops marched past the snuffling and sobbing women to the waiting train. The men's faces were perspiring, red and serious-

looking, and some of them were anxious and sad in spite of the stirring music. Chafing uniforms, rhythmical tramp of boots on the stone surface, good-by, good-by, we'll soon be back, or perhaps not so soon, good-by. There was a smell of sweating soldiery and hot metal and station. The young woman waved her wet handkerchief. The bandsmen casually packed up their instruments and went away, pigeons fluttering in front of them. Up to a year ago they went on playing till the train moved off, Braun said to himself. But one shouldn't be ungrateful; nowadays when troops left for the front there was often no band at all. After all, it was June, 1943. "Get a move on, you idiots!" a sergeant shouted, and one of the women behind Braun exclaimed: "What an unpleasant man! Really, in this heat." Her companion blew her nose and said: "Otmar said in his last letter that in France there are still..." Braun picked up his bag and walked through the barrier past the military policeman, who kept saying in his Austrian accent: "Back everybody, back!" II In the compartment in which he was to travel to "Somewhere" in Russia, Braun found his immediate superior, Captain Hans Surkamp, the battalion medical officer, whose assistant he was, and a lieutenant whom he knew only by sight. The medical officer had taken off his boots and put his legs up on the wooden seat, and was drinking beer from a paper cup. Braun saluted and asked whether he might come in. The captain said: "Come in, my boy, come in! Let me introduce you." He introduced Braun to the lieutenant, who rose and held out his hand. "Von Andres, delighted." His handshake was cool, aloof and dry. "How about some beer?" the captain said to .Braun. "I'd prefer soda water, sir, if I may." "A farewell party?" asked the captain. "Franz!" he called out, without changing position. "Franz!" A medical orderly appeared at the compartment door, saluted, and the captain sent him for some soda water. The lieutenant—he was a pale, handsome man, rather tired and bored-looking, with very light eyes, and a mouth that drooped at the corners—said: "He's half blind." He was referring to the orderly, who wore thick glasses, through which he peered uncertainly. "Can't be helped, we're used to it," said the captain. "Nothing one can do. Everyone who makes a bad impression at the enrollment center goes straight into the Medical Corps. Particularly if he wears glasses. The theory: he wears glasses, he'll never be able to shoot, but he must be intelligent." "How can a clod like that be expected to drag a wounded man out of the firing line?" said the lieutenant. "To tell you the truth, I could do with a glass of soda water myself." "Celebrate too?" "Only in the family, so to speak. My old man turned up, so I was under orders: stay at home and be bored to death." "You shouldn't have chosen a colonel for your father. Or is he a general now?" "Just been promoted." "At Supreme Command?" "Exactly, major general."

The lieutenant frowned in a cross, bored fashion, as if he had some objection to his father's being a general at Supreme Command. The captain looked at him with a slightly mocking smile, causing his face to pucker into a hundred little folds. This made him look like a supercilious dwarf amusing himself at the expense of the world. The lieutenant went on: "Fortunately the old man keeps rigidly to his timetable; eleven o'clock sharp: to bed, so I just had time to pop out for a bit. Unfortunately I ended by popping out for just a bit too long." The orderly came back with a paper cup of soda water, the doctor paid him and gave him ten pfennigs extra, and the lieutenant said: "You can get me a cup too." "Very good, sir." The orderly peered inanely through his glasses and the lieutenant said impatiently, without looking at him: "Well, carry on, man, carry on." The orderly saluted, superfluously in Braun's opinion, and left. Braun drank some soda water, which made his nose prickle; he belched and said: "Pardon me." Outside the window the N.C.O. shouted at two soldiers who were dragging a box, and Braun, using the words and even the tone used by the women outside the station, said to himself: What an unpleasant person. And in this heat tool "How can you stand a man like that medical orderly?" said the lieutenant. "Not everyone has the luck to produce an orderly like yours," said the captain. Then, turning to Braun: "You must get to know him. He's a prize example." "That was a good show just now," said the lieutenant. "Music, flowers ..." "Makes you feel almost a hero," said the captain. "Does it? Do you?" They smiled at each other, and after a pause the lieutenant said: "I ought really to be on three weeks' leave." "Didn't you get it?" "Of course not. The usual story. Jaundice, sick leave essential, but after ten days, no, eleven, I was ordered to report back." "More or less the same with me. But we had a band to see us off." "And just when things were beginning to hum. Annoying!" "Pretty?" "Exciting. Something to do with films and that sort of thing, Ufa or Terra, plays the guitar, you know, sings with a husky voice . . . dances a little too, got everything. Temperament—well!" "Wasn't it rather a strain after the jaundice?" "Would have been, of course. Has Javanese blood in her, or whatever it is. Comes from somewhere out there. Tahiti . . . bananas, etc. ... go about with garlands of flowers round their necks .... Hawaii? Anyway her parents. Always dances barefoot." Braun thought of Erika, and decided that Prussian blood was pretty exciting too, and caught himself thinking that not seeing her for a time would be quite a relief. It had really become rather a strain. Jealous. Though she never stopped talking about how terrified she was of her husband. A darling really, but so jealous and passionate and violent—once he smashed all the Meissen—if

he caught her he would shoot her, and him (Braun) too, of course, and last of all himself, for "He loves me so!" The orderly brought the soda water, and the lieutenant handed him some money, without looking at him. The man stood there wavering, and the lieutenant dismissed him with an impatient gesture. The man hesitated, said: "Thank you, sir, thank you very much, sir," and backed out awkwardly. He closed the door very gingerly and quietly after him. The N.C.O. who had been bawling just before now ran down the platform. A whistle blew, and the train moved off, stopped with a jerk, and the buffers clashed. The lieutenant spilled some water over his uniform and said: "Damn!" A drop of water on his Iron Cross, Class I, caught the doctor's eye, and the lieutenant seemed to notice his glance. He said: "Is this the first time you're going to the front?" "Yes," Braun answered, wondering whether he should or should not say "sir." As it could do no harm, he said "sir." "What's happening out there?" the captain asked. "Where do you mean?" said the lieutenant. "Out there there or out there here?" "There." "Things are starting up again. We're going to attack. Major offensive." He spoke the last words slowly and thoughtfully, syllable by syllable. "Oh?" "You mean—high time?" "No. I was just wondering . . . how do you know?" "My old man told me. He can't help knowing, connected with the supply services and so on. ... A whole lot of new tanks, Panthers or something of the sort; they're said to be better than the Russian T34's. Anyway, that's what he says. In the central sector, and as that's where we are . . ." "If it goes well . . ." the captain said with a yawn. "We hope it'll go well," said the lieutenant. "First: it's our duty to believe it; second: it's easier and more comfortable to believe it." At that moment Dr. Braun did not care whether the offensive would go well or not. He was tired and wanted to go to sleep.

III The Doctor That was how I went to war: end of June, 1943. With a hangover, some soda water, and two aspirins in my belly, and feeling quite relieved that the affair with Erika had so conveniently been brought to an end. True, she had sworn eternal fidelity (aside from her husband of course, "but that you must understand, darling, because he loves me so"), but I knew her, and it was obvious that within a fortnight at the latest she would be telling somebody else how jealous her husband was, that excellent and violent economic or armaments man. I couldn't have cared less—anyway, not now.

For me war was still a closed book, and it had a great deal to do with playing Indians, bugle calls, Ernst Junger, dying for one's country, history lessons at school, Caesar's Gallic War ("From when to when did the Seven Years' War last, Braun, and what was the event that caused it to turn in favor of Frederick the Great?"). War meant the stories my uncle told me when he came to see us and was a bit drunk —mud, lice, hunger, thirst and obnoxious superiors, the Somme, Verdun, Richthofen's circus, and those damned sailors, who, well, you know. Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Tannenberg, Clausewitz's high collar and curly hair (he looked more like Goethe's Werther than like a general) and Moltke's ascetic looks. The continuation of politics by other means. Schlieffen and hurrahs and men going over the top and being mowed down by machine guns, Count Luckner, who could tear a telephone book in two, and his Sea Devils (or was he called the Sea Devil?), the assault on Paris and men firing and dying and being wounded, the picture of a kneeling blonde nurse maternally handing a cup to a grateful-looking soldier, with the words underneath: "German nurse gives refreshment to a wounded hero"; yelling and shouting and the enemy assaulting one's position, an attack of one's own, enemy position captured, artillery bombardments and tanks and dive bombers and men groaning and dying, and victories, breakthroughs, encirclements. A film made up of short, violent scenes alternating with quiet ones, a series of pictures that you looked at and that was all. Nothing can happen to me, I'm just a spectator. And nights in the air-raid shelter (once when the light went out Sister Hildegard and I took advantage of the opportunity—fantastic, but we weren't the only ones, others did the same, at any rate two other couples, you could tell from their breathing) and the hospital with its overcrowded wards and corridors, and the doctors (now I was allowed to call them colleagues) who went to the front and came back: "The French campaign, a walk in the country, hardly saw any action at all, Guderian broke straight through to Dunkirk, sure, I was there myself, at any rate not very far away." And all the new nurses, of whom we young doctors and medical students took a rich toll (Hildegard was one, and there was actually a princess among them, quite nice), and the first serious casualties, and the six-month-long martyrdom of the man from the mountain rifle regiment who got a backbone wound in the Caucasus, we called him Seppl the Bavarian. He hung in a special bed and stank so terribly that no one could bear to spend more than a few minutes with him. Except Sister Elisabeth, she nursed and tended and looked after him with the most complete and absolute and self-effacing devotion until she was reduced to a shadow of her former self (all this happened under my own eyes and it affected me more at the time than the battle of Stalingrad, where thousands were dying every day). No doubt about it, that mustached Sister Elisabeth, who was more male than female, acted like a sergeant and was respected by everybody and feared by most. When Seppl the Bavarian died she collapsed, they took her away and we never heard of her again. That was what war meant to me. It was an adventure; sometimes a rather anxious wondering when my turn would come. Now it had come. But the first casualty that came my way (apart from a case of diarrhea on the train, one or two boils, and a crushed finger) was a young soldier with a self-inflicted wound. It happened on the afternoon before we went into action. I remember the whole thing perfectly. He was a boy of nineteen or less, and his name was Werner Hess. I was on the way to battalion headquarters, which was in a peasant's house behind

a big plantation of fruit tress. The front line was only about two miles away, and every now and then there was a crackle of rifle or machine-gun fire, and only occasionally the bursting of a shell. A young soldier came running toward me and asked my help though he didn't forget to salute smartly, which was in strange contrast to his breath-lessness, his agitated, sweating face, and the phrases that he only half-managed to bring out. One of his comrades had let a detonator explode in his hand (what sort of detonator? I wondered), and half his hand had been blown off, and he was covered with blood—over there. He pointed toward the fruit trees, where a group of soldiers huddled over something. There were not many of them; only a few paces away others were sitting or lying about in the shade. Some were smoking. The cigarette smoke curled slowly up into the treetops, one man snatched absent-mindedly at a fly, motionless patches of sunlight formed a complicated pattern on the trampled grass, and a bumblebee buzzed continuously. I looked at this scene as if I were at the cinema and the film had suddenly stopped; I was a spectator, timeless and motionless, with no influence on the action that had come to a sudden standstill—until I started running and was plunged into the middle of events. As I hurried across the patches of sunlight and shadow toward the motionless group I thought what a good thing it was that I had my bag with me. I heard the soldier's heavy footsteps and the clattering of his gas mask behind me, and quite incidentally I remembered what the chief medical officer at the training center had said: "When you are at the front, gentlemen, remember to take your bag with you even to the latrine—you might need it on the way." Then I was there. I forced my way through the little group and bent over the wounded man. A voice said: "I saw the whole thing. I was sitting three or four yards away." "I was sitting practically next to him," another voice said, and yet another: "That's a fine sort of chap to have with us." The voice, high-pitched, rather hoarse and unpleasant, matched perfectly the spoken words. "How did it happen?" I asked. "We were priming the hand grenades," the first voice said. "I was watching him, not very attentively, just casually, and suddenly I noticed what he was doing. How could I tell that he had the detonator in his hand?" "What sort of detonator?" I asked. "A hand grenade detonator." "A fine sort of chap to have with us," the high-pitched voice repeated. "How could I possibly tell he had the detonator in his hand?" asked the first voice. It sounded somehow as if the speaker felt he had to defend himself because of the wounded man's action. Looking up I saw that he was just as young as the latter, and nearly as pale. He looked at the wounded man: "He had the handle in his hand, where the detonator sticks out at the top, but he had his hand round it and the detonator; you couldn't see the detonator, of course. Then he presses it, there's a hiss, and I say to myself: What's he up to? What on earth is he up to? I want to say: Don't be an idiot, Werner, but there it goes. I see how his fingers fly off, he looks at his hand—half of it's gone—and then he turns green and faints." "Perhaps he didn't know what would happen ..." I began while I bandaged the hand, but the high-pitched voice interrupted.

"Any idiot knows," it said. "Self-inflicted wound." It lingered almost pleasurably and very contemptuously over the phrase. "What a hero! Now his hand's gone, and maybe his head too. What a hero—idiot!" I tried hard not to listen to the voice. It was right, but I did not like it. I told them that someone must get the stretcher-bearers, and hoped that the man with the high-pitched voice would go away. But later I learned: people with those voices always stay to the end to savor the misfortune or humiliation of others. They do not want to miss anything. "Hurry up, you, get moving," said someone, no doubt an N.C.O. Footsteps hurried away. I looked up. The men were standing round me in full battle dress, rifles slung over their shoulders, hand grenades in their belts, looking inquisitive, slightly sorrowful, slightly horrified, and slightly enjoying themselves, much as people stand around someone who has been hurt in a car accident. I bound up the hand and tried to look relaxed and calm; I do not know whether I succeeded. The young soldier was my first casualty; yet this had been easy. I wondered what it would be like the next day or the day after or in a week's time, when others would be brought in with smashed hands, arms, legs, heads, bones, arteries, lungs. I remembered illustrations in my textbooks and cadavers in the dissecting room, but these illustrations would be living illustrations and not dead cadavers. The wounded man lay there white-faced, moaning softly, with rolling eyes and pointed yellow nose, holding his left arm and shattered hand stiffly by his side. There were dark-red drops on the blades of grass underneath his hand, there was a smell of summer, grass, sweat, fresh blood. I wound layer after layer of white bandage around his hand. The sound of a long, sharp whistle came from behind the trees; a loud, husky voice called out: "No. 1 Company, fall in!"

The Major . . . In accordance with divisional orders the assault battalion attached for special purposes has taken up its position in the assembly area in preparation for the attack. Liaison re supply matters with 72nd Grenadier Regiment duly established. Unit morale, good. Casualties to date, one man with self-inflicted wound (reports from company commander, Lieutenant von Andres, and battalion medical officer, Captain Surkamp, attached); two men sick. (Signed) Fechter Major, o/c Battalion

I Captain Surkamp There are people whose brow is marked with a sign. Most of them do not live long. They appear, they are there for a time, they make one thoughtful, then they disappear somewhere or other, or perhaps you find them lying somewhere, and if they have to die they do so quietly and un-noticeably, apologetically—I'm sorry, I'm a nuisance. Then you forget them, but you never forget them as completely as you do the others, they are always there even after they are dead.

They come and go, and their shadows come and go, and there is always a trace of sadness about them. Like Lieutenant Kroger, whom the major drove to his death. I think that young Dr. Braun is another one of them. I hope I am wrong. I like him.

The Doctor. There are people about whom there is something wrong. You can't say what, you can't explain it, it's a vague feeling. What they say sounds intelligent and clear and convincing. They are always right and they speak the truth. They fit in, or at least they react properly to a situation. They are as solid as a rock, they radiate assurance. They never expect from others more than they would be prepared to do themselves. They inspire confidence and readiness to undertake responsibility. With them you know you are in good, if not always comfortable, hands. All the same something is wrong. Are they too right? Is what they say too obviously appropriate and clear? Is their assurance too assured, their calmness too calm, their self-confidence too confident? Is their readiness to undertake responsibility overdone? I do not know. Was it after my talk with the major that these thoughts passed through my mind? He spoke in a cool, decisive voice and in carefully weighed, well-constructed phrases, with a short pause after each comma, and a somewhat longer pause after each period. His voice was in perfect harmony with his manner and his appearance was in perfect harmony with his voice. No doubt, the major was a perfectly composed entity with no protruding edges, the kind of man you can't help wishing you were like. His name was Lutz Fechter, his dark hair was cut short, he had a tanned, hard face with good features, and a stiff, erect figure. His uniform fitted perfectly, but he would have looked smart in a sack (there are women like that, too). The Knight's Cross under his chin gleamed dully in the gilded light that flooded through two small windows into the room; he underlined his words with slight movements of his long, strong hands. He said: "I invariably make a point of getting to know personally every man under my command. The time I devote to this is proportionate to the importance of the individual concerned, or rather of his duties. On active service the importance of a doctor increases tremendously. There is a simple psychological cause for this with which you are no doubt already familiar. Everyone must count on the possibility of being wounded. There are even some who hope for such an eventuality. When they know themselves to be in good hands, or, what is probably more important, in the hands of a doctor in whom they have confidence, their very natural fear of wounds and pain is diminished and their fighting spirit is enhanced accordingly. I hope that that is as clear to you as it is to me." "Yes, sir," I said. "I expect three things from you. First: personal courage. Second: absolute obedience in all military matters. I won't interfere with your medical staff. Third: discipline—the voluntary, not the enforced kind; I want you to fit smoothly into the chain

of command in which everybody has his own clearly defined responsibilities. Cooperation. Let there be no misunderstanding; let me make it clear that, if circumstances ever made it necessary to do so, I should have no hesitation in taking the steps required to enforce the required discipline. Discipline of the enforced kind is better than none at all. Fourth: complete and absolute devotion to your duties. Fifth: technically unobjectionable treatment of my wounded. Sixth: absolute ruthlessness in all cases of malingering and shamming. And finally—and this is a piece of advice based on experience—never let that animal in you get the upper hand. Your responsibilities are too great for that. Have we understood each other?" "Yes, sir," I said. He produced a cigarette case and opened it. "Do you smoke?" "Yes, sir." "Please help yourself." I took a cigarette, and so did the captain. I lit their cigarettes, and used a new match to light my own. The major put back his cigarette case and buttoned up his pocket. We smoked. "We are going to attack tomorrow morning," the major said, and two puffs of smoke emerged from his nostrils. "Oh!" the captain exclaimed in surprise. The major looked at him and nodded. We remained silent for a few moments, and then the major said that now it was our turn to go over to the offensive again. The striking power of the troops to be committed was greater than it had been at the beginning of the war. The objective was to break through the central sector of the Russian front and knock out the reserves that were lying behind it, thus finally freeing the road to Moscow. We had more tanks, more aircraft, more guns, more men, concentrated in a smaller area, than ever before. We, that is to say, our battalion, had always reached its objective. What he wanted of us—that is to say, of me—was that I must always be well forward. The fact that two qualified doctors were posted to this battalion must make it clear even to a novice that this was no ordinary unit. This was an assault battalion (he said this slowly and with emphasis). The captain would explain to me what this involved. I had to see that no wounded man was left unnecessarily lying about for hours, untended, perhaps bleeding to death, even in no man's land. Finally, the major asked the captain what he thought of the new draft. "They're all right," he replied. "They are lucky to be on the attack and not on the defensive." "A bit soft—gaps in their training," the major said thoughtfully. "But we'll soon straighten that out." "Tomorrow morning early?" the captain asked. The major nodded. "You'll be coming to the briefing later." And to me: "I hope we have understood each other." "Yes, sir," I said. We stubbed out our cigarettes and left.

II

The major sat motionless on the bed against the wall, his fists clenched on the table in front of him. His body was less stiff than usual, and his shoulders drooped slightly. He told himself that he ought to go to bed, but he could not get up and undress. He listened to the hum of a Russian bomber flying south, toward Tomarovka, and absent-mindedly counted the detonations of the bombs. One—two —three—four—five—six. He said to himself that the bombs had probably dropped on the supply columns, or perhaps had just fallen in open country. Task carried out, German positions bombed, effect unknown, antiaircraft fire nil. The Germans were asleep. He thought of his conversation with the general, and of fat Colonel Muller with his perpetual cigar. Enfant terrible, certainly weighed 220 pounds, if not more, a capable, hard-headed officer. The general had raised his glass of cognac and said in his high-pitched, slightly nasal voice: "Gentlemen, let us drink to three things: to Germany, to our Fuhrer and Supreme Commander, and to the success of our operation." I have carried out tougher tasks than this, the major said to himself. I shall take the bridge and the factory and the village. I shall cross the river. I shall carry out this task as I have carried out all the others, and I shall do it more quickly than the gentlemen think, and then another and another and another, and I shall always be up front. And I shall come back, only fools or the unlucky get hit. I am lucky. I know what I have to do, and I know what I want. Major Fechter, please consider whether you would like a staff appointment. Major Fechter of the General Staff. No, Lieutenant Colonel Fechter, Colonel Fechter ... I shall not accept until I have the Oak Leaves. That fool let a detonator explode in his hand . . . Everything depends on knowing exactly what you want. Other people wish things to happen, want them, but I will them. You have to be a leader. Make others do exactly what you want and make them believe they want it themselves, even if they don't want it at all. Nobody wants war. Nobody wants that idiotic bridge and the factory on the other side of the river, or the village, or the hill; perhaps the general and a few officers do, but nobody wants them the way I do. Least of all my troops. I will make them believe that the bridge and the factory and the hill are the most important things in the world. When I say we want them, they have got to want to want them: because / have said so. And the same with the next hill and the next factory and the next village and then a bridge and a bridgehead and two hills and a mountain and several towns, a whole sector of the front; it won't be over soon, it can't be over soon. I know. Anyone who believes it will be over soon is deceiving himself. . . . Will it come out all right? That swine who let the detonator . . . That reflects on me. Major Fechter, didn't one of your men ... a self-inflicted wound, Major Fechter? Colonel Fechter of the General Staff. I'll come back home, a big Mercedes, or maybe a Horch, and Elfie will be standing at the door, tall, blonde, smiling, cool and beautiful, I'll make her accept me. Aristocracy? Old family? I'll make her accept me. . . . Mesalliance? With a winner of the Oak Leaves, a general? Ridiculous! But I mustn't dream.

Others carry out orders. The orders are to cross the bridge, form a bridgehead, and take the hill. I will do it, I will take the hill, but it won't be an ordinary hill, it will be my hill. Others take other hills and other villages, and they are just ordinary hills and ordinary villages, but for me these are personal objectives, and I shall make them my troops' personal objectives too. I shall marry Elfie, I shall make her marry beneath her, the son of the caretaker and chauffeur. But that belongs to the past. Beneath her—ridiculous, that kind of thing's all over now. Self-inflicted wound, he let the detonator. . . . Leadership. There's nobody but me. So long as they're fighting they have to look up to me as to their god. I am their god. I stand above events. I know everything. I decide swiftly and I am right. I am their salvation. When they are hit, they can call on God or their mothers, it doesn't matter, they no longer count, they can call on anything or anybody they like. But all those still able to fight must in their fear call not upon God nor upon their mothers but upon me. I am the will to take the bridge and the factory and the hill. Why did he do that with the detonator? Fear. What's wrong with that young doctor? He looks all right, but there's something wrong. Elfie will drop her damned pride and arrogance. Don't let us talk about it any longer, Herr Fechter, why do you always start again? She'll behave. There are not many staff officers with the Oak Leaves. I will be one of the few, and I will always know what I want. ... I must not dream. And he said to himself: All right, I dream, so what, my dreams are not shapeless, formless, idle wishes, but real possibilities, and I know it. All right, even if I do dream, my dreams are not like those of others, those of my father, the well-meaning old fool. . . . Yes, sir, no, sir, as you wish, sir, that is how God made the world and we should be grateful to Him. He divided mankind into those who give orders and those who take them. . . . No, no, not me, not like him, but like my mother: she knew what counted in life! Not you, Lutz, not you! They must say, a man of the people, his father was a . . . worked his way up, all respect, he has a beautiful wife, old family. . . .His father once worked for them, for a long time, but then something went wrong, stock market or something, and they couldn't afford a chauffeur any longer. No, they're not poor, but they're not rich.... I stood at the basement window watching Elfie play in the garden, small and delicate, and I asked my father whether I could go and play with her. But he said: "You are too big, you might frighten her." And besides, I didn't belong in her part of the house. I must know my station. That was the way the world was, and I should respect existing order, which couldn't be altered. The major sat as if carved in stone. He had stiffened again, his shoulders were squared and tense and the bones of his clenched fist showed white. His features were immobile, and in his heart there was deep bitterness.

The Night The enemy is continually moving reinforcements, principally by way of the Voroga bridges, to Pushkarnoye, and Marievka, in the bridgehead he has established since June 27 on both sides of Pushkarnoye. In particular tank and antitank gun units have been identified moving in the direction of Redkovka and near Pushkarnoye. Infantry has been observed moving by night toward the eastern extremity of the wooded area around the lake northwest of Redkovka, and has also been observed entering Pushkarnoye, where the freight station has been strongly consolidated. Enemy artillery positions have so far been detected in the Voroga valley, one detachment to the south of Pushkarnoye and three more between Sumskoye and Pushkarnoye, and another to the north of Marievka. Air reconnaissance has shown up to 200 guns in an area of half a mile, as well as dug-in tanks in concentrations of up to fifty. (Extract from divisional assault orders)

I The Doctor Puhlmann, a clubfooted Pfc, has been made my orderly. He is a strange fellow. I was not surprised to hear that his comrades think him slightly mad; some of them say he has second sight. He either tells them the oddest stories or, when there is nobody to listen, he talks to himself. Then again he will be silent for hours and you cannot get a word out of him. His papers list his civilian occupation as unskilled laborer. He calls himself "a free-lance worker"—but it was not difficult to find out what he really did. Sometimes he sold cheap watches and other trash to "suckers" as he called them, and sometimes he acted as a pimp for one of his many girl friends or as a night club and brothel tout. "The places I liked to recommend were Mme. Rosa's and the Pompadour —do you happen to know them? They were competitive establishments, so to speak, in a little street along side the Kurfurstendamm. I know every inch of the area. Good 20 houses, excellent, very correct. Mme. Rosa specialized in young girls, intact, so to speak. Her clients were only men from the very best circles." A peaceable, easygoing, adaptable chap. "I have always been on excellent terms with the police, excellent. The police only do their duty, I simply cannot understand why some people look at them as enemies! I have never wanted to have anything to do with them." Puhlmann was the sort of person who always looks slightly scruffy even when he has just had a bath (you see the type hanging around stations in all big towns). He had a sensitive, gnomelike face that sometimes looked young, even boyish, and sometimes very old indeed, as old as the human race, or even older. His soft black eyes were alert and lively, sometimes crafty and evil and sometimes full of kindness, understanding, and wisdom. Of his clubfoot he said apologetically: "It has never bothered me. It was because of it that I became a medical orderly. Otherwise I should have tried to be a reserve N.C.O. Oh, no, I should never have been good enough to be an officer, but I think

I should have made a useful N.C.O., particularly on the administrative side, I mean in the back areas." In the course of time he had done a great deal of casual and unselective reading and acquired an astonishing range of knowledge, though with many gaps in it. He told me that sometimes, particularly in winter, he used to spend the day in the big lecture hall at Berlin University, so that he could go and scrounge in the canteen afterward. In spite of his occasional talkativeness, he gave one the feeling that he was hiding something, that he knew more, far more, than he ever said, that he saw things we never saw. Perhaps he had second sight. Perhaps he saw ghosts. Sometimes, when he thought nobody was looking, you could see it in his eyes. As a medical orderly he was invaluable. With his slender, sensitive hands—you did have to keep your eyes on him to make sure he washed them first—he dealt with the wounded as delicately as a woman. He was a goodhearted, talkative or stubbornly silent man, rather secretive, but never uncomfortably so, imaginative and helpful, a Sancho Panza and a Candide, a jester and a philosopher. And he saved my life.

The night before the attack was dark and quiet. In the little back room where Puhlmann made my bed the window was open. Every now and then something moved outside, there were occasional footsteps and voices, and the old house was full of muffled sounds. In the distance behind the wood a machine gun rattled from time to time, breaking the silence and making it still deeper when the short burst was over. Occasionally it was answered by the slower and more deliberate and barely audible rat-tat of a Russian machine gun, and sometimes in the intervals there was the faint report of a rifle shot in the distance. For a time you could hear the hum of an aircraft engine high over the wood; peaceable and harmless, until it finally faded away somewhere toward the north. I waited for the explosion of the bombs and for antiaircraft fire, but nothing happened. Assault battalion. Tomorrow. Attack. I thought of the major, casually, and of the man who had let the detonator explode in his hand. "Did you feel sorry for the boy?" Captain Surkamp had asked me. "I'm not quite sure ..." "Of course you felt sorry for him. It was obvious." "Yes." "A mistake. That's a luxury we can't afford." "Yes, so I've heard. I can't imagine why." "You felt sorry for him because of his shattered hand. He still has his thumb and second finger. That's enough. You ought to feel sorry for him because of what will happen to him next." "What?" "Tell me—are you really that stupid or are you only pretending?" His face twisted into an unpleasant grin. "How should I know? But I can imagine," I said.

"No, you can't," he said, and after a pause: "Hoard your sympathy or you won't be able to take it. You must have no feelings. You are a machine. Finished. Next case." "Concentrate on the job." "See it through," he said. "Yes, of course," I said. He was right. Still, something was wrong, but what? And why had the major not mentioned the boy with the self-inflicted wound? I thought: This is war. No, not yet. Tomorrow. Now I am at the front, but the night is quiet and the soldiers are talking about girls and heaven knows what else, and my first casualty was the boy with the detonator. Why had he done it? Tomorrow it will be the real thing. Tomorrow. It was quiet, and the house whispered as do wooden houses, or brick and stone houses only when they are very old. Footsteps went by in the road, and a cough came from a male throat. I lay there, staring at the ceiling.

The hum of a Russian bomber came closer and then faded away. I lay there half asleep. Tomorrow, I thought. We have to take a bridge, a factory, and a hill. Russian artillery observation posts, a treeless hilltop, a trench. "The outcome of a battle depends to a great extent on the opportunities for observation," Lieutenant von Andres had remarked when he dropped in during the evening. After he left Puhlmann said: "A gentleman, a real gentleman. Did you notice his boots? They always shine, even in the worst mud. How does he do it? He wears a clean shirt with a starched collar every day. And his orderly always has to scrub his back ... a gentleman. Very old!" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Very old. Very tired. Too bad." "What is?" "Something will happen to him. Didn't you see it in his face?" "I didn't see a thing. Nonsense!" He looked at me, mockery in his eyes. "It doesn't have to happen, it's only very probable," he said. Half asleep, I saw in my mind's eye the pale, slightly bored face of the lieutenant and Puhlmann's knowing, gnomelike features, and I heard the bombs drop and counted the detonations. One—two—three—four—five—six ... I waited for the seventh, but it did not come. Was anybody there where the bombs dropped?

II When Lieutenant von Andres crossed the railway line about two hundred yards north of divisional battle headquarters, he started counting his steps. This was a practice he had adopted after losing his way a few times by night in unfamiliar country. He had to count 1,500 paces along the

narrow road before reaching the point at which he must turn into the wood where his company was waiting at its battle station. The road was empty, and the dust muffled the sound of his footsteps. From time to time he met a clattering, fleeting, hurrying shadow. A runner. From the right, where the front line lay— there really was a "front line" here—came the occasional sound of nervous small-arms fire. There was hardly anything to see, but all the more to feel. The night was full of men, expectancy, foreboding. When the first bomb fell he stopped, and counted the detonations: two—three—four—five— six. Then he walked on, idly counting his footsteps and allowing his thoughts to wander. Hundred-pounders, right in the middle of our assembly position, two, three men dead, maybe ten, but a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand men are waiting for tomorrow. The whole place is alive with men, tanks, assault guns, aircraft, metal. And all this effort—for what? If one only knew! You really ought to know, he said to himself. But you don't. How much does a gun cost, for instance? You used to know. Or a hand grenade? That's cheap, just a bit of lead. But a tank? You could use the money. No, what for? You have enough. But what does a bomb cost and the plane that drops it, until it's shot down, twisted metal and that's that, a million marks gone up in smoke? Tomorrow a lot of tanks will be blown to hell, a lot of shells will be fired, and the only result will be to set a lot of dirt flying—dirt on one's boots, dirt on one's hands, dry earth between one's fingers. We'll stir up a lot of dirt and kill some Russians, and if we are unlucky get killed ourselves. But what has it to do with you? You never liked playing with dirt, why do you do it now? "Four hundred and forty," he muttered. There are always innumerable possibilities, there are a thousand worlds interlinked with each other, superimposed on each other, all existing simultaneously, each one different—but there is dirt everywhere. And the sum-total of it all is quite different from what you thought in your stupidity, my dear chap, and sometimes it's dangerous. Tomorrow, for instance, it's going to be rather dangerous, but different from what it used to be. Twice wounded, once down with jaundice, perpetual diarrhea, dirt, the Iron Cross, Class I, is that nothing? Many come through. Will you? You've been lucky. Creep around like ants, and keep on creeping. More and more men and tanks and guns are poured into this miserable country and are swallowed up by it as if they had never existed. This country is alive, a sponge, or a hydraheaded monster that feeds on men and guns and shells and houses and bridges. It swallows them, grinds them to bits with its teeth, devours them. And what comes out at the other end? This idea amused him so that he stopped, shook his head, and smiled. Six hundred and twenty. And so whole divisions, whole armies are set up and armed, twelve thousand or fifteen thousand men to a division, it depends. They are sent into the line, march through dirt and dust and wait for orders, patiently, like a herd of cattle, they march on, they run forward and run back. Round the edge of the wood, he down, get up, across that field, past the dead horse to the burned-out tank and then turn right through the hollow. There they wait again, and take the opportunity to slip quickly into the bushes and relieve themselves. An order arrives and on they go, buttoning up their trousers. But, to be honest, occasionally they also shoot, usually into the air.

And they melt away and become less and less, until only a handful with a few dirty weapons are left, and new men and new weapons arrive and the whole game begins all over again. That, he said to himself, is history. And what comes out at the other end? Seven hundred and fifty. "Gentlemen," the major said, "we have five days to reach the divisional objective. Height 217.5." One ought to be like him. No, better not, it would be too exhausting. For him Height 217.5 is a tree-covered hill with Russians on it. "We shall take that hill, gentlemen, is that clear?" And to you? A bit of dirt. All that trouble for a bit of dirt! A few houses and a factory chimney, not a very tall one, and behind it a molehill, the strategically important Height 217.5, a point of vital strategic importance, with comrades on top of it looking down through field glasses at the soil of Mother Russia, down below, where a lot of ants are creeping about, the accursed Germans, death to the accursed Germans, but we shall creep over the river, we shall creep up the height like ants, red ants from the Amazon, poisonous heroic ants from Dresden and Leipzig, from the Rhineland and Vienna and Prussia, and the hero ant von Andres will capture the strategically important Height 217.5, whereupon senior ant Fechter will say: "Very good, very good, carry on in the same way and you'll have earned the Knight's Cross." He said "a thousand" aloud, and was not quite certain that it should not have been eleven hundred, and continued to himself: What a lot of bloody nonsense! What unseemly ideas you have running through your head, my dear chap, you, a lieutenant in the German Army, the son of an important general and the descendant of many generals, or at any rate potential generals, for some of them only reached the rank of major, or even captain—because of adverse circumstances and affairs with women and an occasional illegitimate child. How unseemly are these ideas for you, the scion of an ancient family, the founder of which was personally decorated and ennobled by the Soldier King, a scene recorded for all eternity by two famous artists in two big paintings intended to serve as his imperishable memorial and as an example to his descendants. No, these are unseemly thoughts for the son of men who regarded it as an honor to die righting for their country but found bed more pleasant and agreeable, begetting sons for the field of honor. . . . Well, she got rid of it, I have no objection on ethical or moral grounds. Not a suitable relationship. She got rid of it quietly and discreetly, it's not the first time it has happened. Come here, I said, I don't bite. No, no, she said, it's too dangerous, I was foolish to come as far as this with you—she was a child of the people—a crude, simple Bavarian girl, very well made. You're a very bad man, lieutenant, she said, and I: But, my dear young lady . . . Then she came and sat on the couch and talked about her fiance, a corporal, but a lieutenant is more than a corporal, and he had a von in front of his name, too, and I'd like to try it with a lieutenant with a von in front of his name, nothing will happen, why not? I held her wrist, and she cried a little . . . and it never went so well with anyone as it did with her, damn it, no, she was a little too noisy, damn it! But something happened after all, but there won't be a son for the field of honor. Not for you, at any rate, though there may be one for the corporal, perhaps. . . . Why? Why shouldn't I have had a son by her? I should like to have . . . What is she doing now? He said: "Fifteen hundred." And as he turned into the wood he thought: I will ask the young doctor to dinner tomorrow or the day after.

Tomorrow we attack.

III The Doctor I woke up, I was wide awake, no transition from sleep to wakefulness, I knew at once where I was. I looked at the window, it was still dark, and I closed my eyes again. From the road beyond the garden came the sound of the tread of many feet, and from time to time a muffled order or perhaps an oath. Sound of engines. Puhlmann's voice came from behind the door. "Sir! Sir!" "AH right," I called out. I threw off the blanket, and noticed that my heart was beating hard. I could scarcely breathe, and I wondered whether this was fear.

The Attack XLVl Army Corps, with the 361st Infantry Division on the left (boundary the TomarovkaPushkarnoye road), the 271st Infantry Division on the right, and the reinforced 93rd Grenadier Division in front, will advance from the wooded area north of the road. The advance will take place in two phases in an easterly direction. The objective is elimination of the bridgehead west of the Voroga on both sides of Pushkarnoye; establishment of a bridgehead to the east of the Voroga; occupation of Height 217.5 and consequent elimination of enemy observation points on its summit. . . . The advance will begin at 0337 hours, July 5, coinciding with the second dive-bomber attack on the enemy front line in the direction of Pushkarnoye. (Extract from divisional assault orders) 57. The battalion medical officer will decide in the light of the situation whether the assistant medical officer will accompany the troops into action and provide first aid at forward collecting points or will assist him at the regimental aid post. (Extract from Army Medical Service regulations)

The Doctor I was in a hollow just inside a dense little copse. In front of me lay a treeless, shrubless flat expanse, overgrown with tall grass, beyond it a dark line of trees, where the Russian positions were. It was across this flat expanse, offering not an inch of cover, that we were to advance. On my right was the railway embankment. We had made our way along it to our assembly position. The night had faded, and first light lay over the country. I heard the birds singing; their song was loud and carefree, as it is only in the early morning, and I could not believe that they were really singing. Across the expanse where the sun was going to rise the trees stood like cutouts against the pale sky. And under and behind those trees were the Russian positions—trenches, concrete emplacements, tanks, guns. I could not see them; I only knew that they were there. But everything was quiet and peaceful, and I felt as incredulous about the silent menace in the air as I did about the singing of the birds. I could see the shoulders and steel helmets of two machine gunners who had taken up positions in a foxhole slightly in front of me to my left; they had camouflaged the parapet with foliage that was still fresh and green. The silhouettes of the departing night turned into solid objects, and colors gradually emerged from the prevailing gray. Number 2 had a metal ammunition box in front of him, and was feeding a cartridge belt into the gun. I noticed that he kept casting shy and inquisitive glances toward Lieutenant von Andres, who was leaning motionless against a tree, a slightly bored and disgusted expression on his face.

Each time the boy turned to do this I noticed the whites of his eyes. His face was young and fresh and pink; he looked as if he had just washed in cold water and dried himself with a rough towel. He had come with the draft. In the train he had come to my compartment and asked me for aspirin, very shy and awkward. He had a headache and a slight cold. Wasn't his name Ziolek? The other man, No.l on the gun, was gazing across the flat expanse, with the butt against his chest. Once he turned and spoke so unexpectedly that his younger companion started. "Everything O.K.?" "Yes." "It won't be long now." "No." "You don't have to be scared," said the older man. He had a broad, hard face, and there was no trace of nerves in his voice. "It's always better when you attack. You'll see." "Yes," said the boy. "Stick close to me." "Yes." "Stick close to me and keep well down." "Yes." The lieutenant looked at his watch, and so did I. 0325 hours. It would not be long now. I could hear Puhlmann's breathing behind me. I did not turn to look at him. I did not want to see the fear in his eyes. I knew what I should see, I could hear it in his breathing. No. 1 on the gun said something else, but too softly for me to hear. The boy nodded, and started to stroke the gleaming cartridge belt with his forefinger, backward and forward, backward and forward. From my right I heard the voice of Sergeant Fink. "I want to see you walking, do you understand? Walking, I said. Is that clear?" He was a big, broad-shouldered man with a flat, pale face, who always kept his eyes half shut; his drooping lower lip gave him a semi-idiotic expression. His men were afraid of him and at the same time admired him for his courage. He had the German Gold Cross, and on the way here Lieutenant von Andres had said of him: "A most unpleasant fellow. The best soldier in the company, perhaps in the battalion. Most unpleasant!" I watched him staring at the level expanse in front of us, and he said, as if to himself, but loud enough for all his men to hear: "Don't crawl! Walk!" Behind me Puhlmann's voice said: "Jesus Christ, if . . ." Now.

II In the midst of the uproar, the dry, continuous deafening rattle of small-arms fire, the whine and howl of shells and mortar bombs and Stukas diving to the attack, the ear-splitting crash and roar of detonations, Sergeant Fink shouted and screamed like a maniac. A pall of black smoke began to rise over and behind the wood facing us. More and more shells and bombs were poured

into it, yet the pall grew higher and denser, turning it into an uncanny, growing, shapeless, living thing which, though slain a thousand times, grew bigger and stronger with each death; it drew its life from destruction, in it destruction assumed visible form, nourished by hundreds, no, thousands, of flashing detonations as shells crashed into it one after the other or ten at a time, and it grew higher and higher until it obscured the pale sky where the sun was rising and darkened the sun itself. Sergeant Fink screamed to himself and to the corporal beside him, who was staring at the deafening inferno with drunken, horrified, incredulous eyes in which the yellow flashes were reflected. Sergeant Fink screamed, everything that was happening seemed to come alive and be concentrated in his voice—the cold, impersonal, pitiless annihilation, the huge force and violence concentrated and released in those continuous flashes, again and again and again, one after another and all at the same time (who could say when they took place, for time was abolished); all this was concentrated in the lunatic ecstasy of Sergeant Fink. "Give 'em hell, damn it—give 'em hell!" he screamed, with each phrase striking the ground with his open palm. His face was almost touching the ground, his pointed shoulders were higher than his head, and saliva dribbled from his mouth. His eyes were as mad as his voice, and he struck the ground and screamed: "Give 'em hell! Give 'em hell! More! More! Give 'em hell! More! More! More!"

III Lieutenant von Andres It was a good, a very good, preliminary softening up. The artillery fire, the smoke projectors, the whine of the rockets even got on my nerves. I watched the Stukas diving with a howl into the cloud of dust and smoke, dropping their bombs, and then shooting up again as if on an invisible wire. Was this possible after the agonizing retreat from Stalingrad? I was tempted to be proud of the way we had popped up again, no, I was proud. The young medico watched the crazy Fink in horror. Fink behaved as he usually does. What would Braun have said if he had seen him in close combat? Well, that's something he'll be spared. I looked at my watch. Forty-five seconds to go. A new tone crept into the noise of the barrage and made it, if possible, more deafening than before; the Russian artillery had joined in. Great fountains crept toward us across the open expanse, first singly and then in numbers. It was the same old story. I thought with discomfort of advancing across this open expanse. Was it true that the Russians had up to a hundred guns concentrated in an area of half a mile, not counting mortars? Twenty seconds to go. An assault gun had drawn up behind us. Disgusting noise. I hope the section leaders took to heart what I told them last night. "For once I want to see the men walking," I told them. "Walking, not straying round the countryside like half-wits or heavily laden donkeys." But I don't really believe that what I said will make any difference.

And, as usual before going into action (any child could see that what was going on now was the prelude to very heavy action), I hoped there wouldn't be a direct hit on my quarters. It would be a pity, because of the china and glass. Ten seconds to go. Time to be on the move. I rose, raised my clenched fist, looked at my watch, and counted the seconds. When they were up I raised my fist three times in the air, as was the old custom. To a lot of those to whom it was addressed that gesture of mine was like the hand of fate, and I was very well aware of it. All the same, I felt like an actor making a gesture that his part required, acting a part that was not real, and at the same time watching himself and the effect he was producing; and occasionally smiling at himself in his new role, though not for that reason trying less hard to play it convincingly. After all, one must give value for money. Mine was no leading role, but all the same it was a pretty important one, and my extras obeyed my signal. Gray-green forms appeared everywhere between the trees and bushes as if they had sprung up out of the earth, and began to move forward clumsily. My company. Well-trained extras. They played their part, whether they wanted to or not. Most of them of course did not. Was I any different? On the left was No. 2 Company, and beyond it more and more, an endless chain of advancing men, some of them beginning to bunch. Nothing ever went off perfectly. Sheep. A flock of sheep. No matter how much you preached at them that it was in their own interest to keep open order and not to bunch, they would keep bunching. I snouted at them, I heard myself shouting, it was part of my role, and I started feeling I was a bit of a stage manager too. "Double! Double! Faster! Faster! Spread out, you fools, don't bunch! Don't bunch!" A flock of sheep. They would not learn. An N.C.O. ran past me, horror and rage and frenzy in his eyes. He was playing his part well. No—the thought struck me like an electric shock—that poor devil was not playing a part. After that I discovered that I was not playing a part either. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" Bent figures, shoulders and backs bobbing up and down, gas masks and haversacks bobbing about, steel helmets—one man was actually running with his cap on—rifles in their right hands, and then I noticed just in time that the doctor had started running, too. I chased and caught him, and asked him what the devil he thought he was doing; his business was to stay where he was. There was a dazed look in his eyes. "Yes, of course." "Stay here! Your work comes later." "Yes, of course," and his eyes grew clearer. Is he, too, just another sheep? Now it was my turn. I doubled off, an explosion not far away threw a wave of hot dust into my face, but I hardly noticed it. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, there was another explosion, which wasn't really part of the plot, and I said to myself angrily: For Christ's sake, stop it!

IV The Doctor The lieutenant's words and his mocking face sobered me up; with astonishment and a touch of shame I wondered what on earth had made me follow the advancing men. He was right. My job was still to come. Before he ran on he waved to me, in the friendly, and absent-minded fashion in which he does everything. It was a casual gesture between friends who expected to see each other again a few minutes or a few hours later. Everything O.K.? See you later! He was like an old friend at that moment. I felt very close to him. I watched him running after his men, until he disappeared behind some bushes. The company's first casualty was a private. I saw him drop. But he soon recovered, looked around, and started crawling back toward the wood. At first I thought he had been hit in the leg—why would he crawl—but then I noticed that his arm hung limp. It was all very normal and undramatic. The man dropped, crawled back, I went over to help him, and there was nothing extraordinary or heroic about it. The man was wounded and I was the doctor; his job was over before it had even begun, before he had fired a single shot in anger; and my job had begun. But then he started yelling, and that changed everything. In a high, hysterical voice he started yelling: "Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!" Henceforward that cry was to haunt me even in my sleep. I knelt beside him. When he saw me he stopped yelling. "What's the matter?" I asked—superfluously, because I could see his arm. "My arm," he said. "Anything else?" "I don't know." His arm had been hit by a splinter. It was an ugly wound, bleeding profusely but not dangerous. The bone was undamaged. I bandaged the arm and told him to get up and go to the clearing by the path through the wood, where there were two medical orderlies; I would be there soon, too. He rose slowly, looked at me in amazement, as if he thought he couldn't do it. "Come on, man, get going!" I said, impatiently, and off he went, carefully holding his wounded hand with his other hand and without once looking back. Next I bandaged up a private with a shattered back as best I could, and looked around. There was no one to help me. I had to carry him myself. Where the devil was Puhlmann? The private was lying with his head to one side, and I spoke into his ear. "Can you walk if I help you?" "I'll try," he said. It was almost inaudible. "We must get out of here. The Russian fire is very heavy." "Did it get me bad?" "Not too bad. Try!" "All right."

I raised his right arm and put it round my neck. He shrieked, but I took no notice. Slowly and with difficulty I struggled to my feet and lifted him. He was very heavy, and his shrieks were almost intolerable, but somehow we got to our feet and, bearing his whole weight, I said to him: "Now try!" He couldn't. He shrieked and screamed and cursed me and implored me to drop him. He was better on the ground. I'll kill you. God, how he screamed. His legs were like rubber and would not obey him. So there was damage to the backbone, the spinal cord, healing processes do not take place in the central nervous system, satisfactory results occur only in the case of compression phenomena, there is danger of infection when the foreign body is removed. There was no hope for him. I bent down and pulled him over my shoulder. He vomited, and stopped screaming; he had lost consciousness. He was a big, heavy man, and I wondered whether I could carry him to the little hollow in the clearing where Puhlmann was waiting, and another orderly with a stupid stomach ulcer. / can't carry weights, sir, really I can't. I ignored the Russian shells, which were landing haphazardly all over the place, though some of them came quite close, and dust and dirt flew into my eyes. I had two choices— carry the heavy man or be afraid; both at the same time were impossible. He was too heavy to let me think of anything but the next step, and the next step, and the one after that, it's not far now, now another step, here's the edge of the wood, it's not far now. And, for my sake rather than his, for he couldn't hear me, I said: "We'll soon be there now, we'll soon be there."

An assault gun came rolling along beside the embankment. It rattled past within two yards of us, and the caterpillar tracks stirred up a cloud of dust. Puhlmann rose to his feet and shouted: "Can't you keep farther off, you damn fool?" The engine noise drowned his thin, furious, overexcited voice. The gun commander's head was visible over the armor plate. He looked at us indifferently, jolting up and down with the movements of the steel colossus and the long gun, with his headphones over his ears. His face was covered with a crust of black dust in which sweat had made narrow channels of a lighter color. Our eyes met. His were red, empty, impersonal, like two glass beads. "Bloody idiots!" Puhlmann said.

A private first class appeared through the cloud of dust stirred up by the gun. He was holding his arm to his side. The sleeve had been cut off, and the arm was covered with a dirty red crust. He came and stood close to us, and looked on quietly while I gave the man with the pelvic wound an antitetanus injection. As soon as I had finished he said to me: "Can you patch me up, sir?" He held out his wounded, primitively bandaged arm like a dead thing. "Is it bad?" I asked. "I don't really know. A shell splinter. Damn it! That it should happen now!" "What do you mean?" "Things are going very well. I knocked out a Russian tank."

I congratulated him, and removed the bandage. It should have hurt, but his face showed no sign of. pain. It was a bad wound, though it was hardly bleeding. The muscle was torn, and a piece of pointed, cracked bone was exposed. "You'll be out of it for a bit," I said. "Can't you patch me up quickly, sir?" He looked at his wound with interest. "Not as quickly as all that." "Be glad, you fool!" said Puhlmann. "Doesn't it hurt?" I asked "Not much. Can't you tie it up and let me go back? We've had pretty heavy losses ... I can't..." "You want to go back?" I asked. "You're crazy!" exclaimed Puhlmann. "We found a German prisoner in a dugout. The Russians had carved a star on his belly while he was still alive," the man said. "You could tell from his face, though he was dead when we found him." "You have to go back to the main dressing station," I said. I looked at him, and saw that he wasn't all there. His eyes looked at his wound, but they were not really seeing. It wasn't his wound. The interest he took in it was entirely impersonal, and it gave him no pain, though he should have been in agony. But suddenly, without any visible transition, he grew pale, looked at me with astonishment, as if he had only just noticed me and realized where he was—at the first-aid station, having his arm examined. Then he looked again at his shattered arm and collapsed. "I was afraid of that," Puhlmann said. "What a lunatic!" "Incredible," I said. "A hero without being able to help it," said Puhlmann. "No pain, doesn't believe he could be hit, doesn't believe it could happen to him, hurrah, forward. Mad!" "He knocked out a tank," I said. "He couldn't help that either. Give him a good dose of morphine, sir. He'll need it when he comes to."

Lieutenant von Andres . . . I will be unable to write you for a while, but don't worry unnecessarily, because the dangers to which we are exposed here are nearly always exaggerated. As a "scion of an old military family" I know what I'm talking about, and I assure you that there's no need to worry, even if you read in the newspapers that there has been "heavy fighting." I still think gratefully about the happy and sometimes slightly crazy time I had at home, and thinking about it often helps me to get through the weary routine to which we are all necessarily exposed while on active service. The next time I come on leave we must really manage to do that tour of Germany in my car that we have talked about such a lot. I don't think the war important enough to abandon it for its sake. You must make it your task to soften up father's sense of duty to the extent of getting him to scrounge some gas for us. That will be against his strict principles, but there should be no difficulty about it. But if conditions make this little plan impossible for the time being, we'll carry it out immediately after the war. As it looks as though tomorrow is going to be an exhausting day, I must bring this letter to an end. Please give my love to father and tell him that I shall soon be sending him a longer "report." Your loving son, Friedrich P.S. Your parcel reached me safely. The new shirts fit very well; only one of them is a little too tight in the collar. (From Lieutenant Friedrich von Andres' last letter to his mother, Ulrike von Andres, nee Stuwe)

The Doctor I had dinner with Lieutenant von Andres on the second or third evening after the beginning of the battle. Or should I say, we dined? He was billeted in an old peasant house which no doubt belonged to the collective farm of which the fruit plantation formed a part. The little house was barely visible among the big sunflowers and the two or three plum trees growing in the tiny garden. The house had been empty when the lieutenant moved in; the occupants had probably fled or been taken to Germany to work. The orderly, a quiet man of indefinite age, had laid the table in the big room: a snow-white tablecloth, beautifully ironed, damask napkins, fine china, shining silver, crystal glasses, and a candlestick with three candles burning peacefully. The lieutenant stood in the middle of the room. "Ah, there you are, doctor," he said with a slight bow. "Delighted you could come."

We sat down, and a strange feeling of unreality came over me, a feeling that was not to leave me the whole evening. Was this possible, here in the heart of Russia, in a small, shabby, thatched peasant cottage, after yesterday and the day before? It was unreal and dreamlike—but the light of the candles was reflected ten or a hundred times in the cut glass of the crystal, and their soft glow lay on the white china and on the delicate silver, which seemed to have been made for slim feminine hands and not for those of a soldier. The lieutenant ignored my surprise. Easily, in a pleasant, cool, impersonal voice, he started to talk, about trivialities and commonplaces, memories, vague, fleeting pictures, perfect conversation, with a slight touch of humor and irony. Occasionally he emphasized his remark with a small gesture of his white and carefully tended hands. The uniform of the orderly who waited on us was as spotless and fitted as perfectly as his; quiet, barely audible, he moved around the softly lit room like his own shadow, which constantly slid across the walls; and the candles burned steadily, or flickered in the draught when the door was opened or shut. "You will have a little schnapps before we eat?" the lieutenant asked. "I brought back a whole case from the Balkan campaign. Real slivovitz. Would you like some?" "An excellent idea," I replied. "I have only a few bottles left. The schnapps comes from Sarajevo. Do you know the town?" "I'm afraid, no," I said. "It is almost a historical slivovitz. People there drink it before they eat." The orderly brought in a tray with two small glasses filled with the golden, fragrant liquor. I took one, and the orderly walked around the table and offered the tray to the lieutenant, who said: "It is supposed to be good for your appetite, even doctors recommend it—is that right?" "I think so." "To us!" We drank. "Very good," I said. "I saw parts of this enormously interesting country before the war," said the lieutenant. "My mother gave me a sports car after I finished school, a BMW convertible. A marvelous, powerful car. In it I took a little trip through Yugoslavia and Greece. It was a sunny time, in the truest sense of the word. The sea was blue—Dalmatia, delicious sea food— the sun shone, in the evening the stars and the moon and the lights of the fishing boats ... a postcard, positively trite. I must' say, beautiful! And, of course, slivovitz and red wine. Terrible roads! I went through two sets of tires, my fault really, a touch of showing off, young, starting too fast, sixty miles an hour on dirt roads, a little skidding in the curves, got that from watching race car drivers." The orderly served the first course: ration sardines on a silver tray. With it a thin slice of bread. "I always wanted to go to Dalmatia," I said. "My uncle told me a lot about it." "Yes? And did you?" "I'm afraid not. The war . . ." "Somewhere in Montenegro I got stuck," the lieutenant continued, "no garage for miles around. I spent three days in a small village—enormously hospitable and endless old rules and regulations. I probably showed off all the time, but they ignored it. A warlike people. Rifles, sa-

bers, and daggers hung on all the walls, still from the times of the Turks, I believe. I understand the partisans have their headquarters there now. What was the name of that village? I was handed from house to house. Great poverty, but very proud people. A marvelous race. Tall and tough, the women move as if they were dancing, tango or something southern. Like fairies, a poet would say. Somebody once told me that this beautiful, erect walk is the result of carrying baskets on their heads. Is that possible?" "Yes, it is," I said. Not far away there were three loud detonations; the Russians had started shelling. The house shook slightly, the candles flickered, for a moment I thought they were going out, but then they went on burning peacefully. "In Ragusa, Dubrovnik, or whatever it's name is, I had a nice little adventure. Well, of course. A medieval town, on a small peninsula, great big walls—utterly beautiful women!" The orderly removed the plates. "Another slivovitz?" asked the lieutenant. "Thank you." Like an all-knowing spirit, the orderly appeared with two more glasses. We drank. "Too bad, but I had to cut my trip short . . . autumn 1939." There were three more detonations, this time even closer. The lieutenant put his hands protectively around the candle flames. Then he called for the orderly and told him to close the windows, and, after the orderly had left, he said: "I went through a whole lot of orderlies before I found him. Franz—I don't think that's his name, but that's what I call him, easy to remember—he used to be a waiter at Horcher's. Knew him from before. Would be a shame if he . . ." He made a slight, disdainful gesture with his hand, as if to say: As usual, no? Always the same waste—a gesture which expressed his distance and unspoken contempt for everything that went on outside. A heavy vehicle rumbled by, probably a tank or an assault gun, making the walls, the floor, the table, and the plates tremble. And suddenly I noticed something else, a strange, delicate sound, barely audible and yet quite distinct, a sound that recalled the clinking of glasses, laughing women's eyes, candles, a red, smiling mouth, whispered words, cut glass and soft, pink fingertips. I looked at the lieutenant. His face was relaxed and peaceful, like the face of a child, and his eyes were far away. He smiled and asked: "Do you hear?" "Yes. What is it?" "It's the glasses—they sing." And after a pause: "I got them from my grandmother; and she got them from her mother, who was a very beautiful woman. Some duke gave them to her, a 'very high-up person,' as my grandmother said. Probably a small, a little sad and very romantic love affair." And then came the question I had been expecting all the time: "All this probably surprises you, doctor?" Again a small gesture of his hand, different this time, encompassing his small, peaceful, ghostly and unreal world, the singing glasses, the china, the candles, a world that, as through a miracle, had also a little become my own. "A little, I said. "I don't know the front. Not yet. But it must be unusual."

The door opened, a slight draft drifted over the candles, and out of the twilight behind me appeared two white-gloved hands and served the main course—canned stew, mixed vegetables, potatoes—careful, servile, ghostly hands above the softly steaming food. "Could be. I am certainly not at all willing to do without it." Saying this he smiled, as if to soften the hard and brittle sound of his words. We were silent. The white, ghostly hands now served him. "I don't have enough experience ..." I began, and stopped when I noticed that he did not care what my answer would be. There was nothing else to say, he had already given the answer, and it was final. Then he said: "Oh, I forgot, I must apologize. The glasses have to remain empty. I took a few bottles of wine along, but they got lost.. Perhaps somebody . . . well, the wine was excellent, I hope he enjoys it. I like to look at the glasses. They should be on the table, it looks empty without them. Don't you think so, too?" Again he didn't wait for my answer, but went on spinning his web. "Before my grandmother died, she wanted me to have the glasses; she thought I appreciated such 'bagatelles.' Sounds strange to say she died, doesn't it?" "Why?" "Nowadays one connects the word with a large bed, white pillows, a few doctors, whispered words, softly crying relatives, good-by, last words—everything rather moving. Of course, you are a doctor. I am sure for you the word has a different meaning. Well, my grandmother died in the conventional way, at peace with herself and her world. The latter must have been difficult for her; she was a domineering woman. I remember her last hours distinctly. Do I bore you?" "No, no, on the contrary; please go on," I said. "I had hidden in a corner of the large room and, although everything was very sad and moving, I couldn't cry. The lady was old, I thought it was only right that she . . . and sometimes she was quite difficult . . . And the children . . ." He said this as if to apologize for his indifference to the old lady and her dying. "The only thing that touched me and made me think was the bed and the room. . . . Up to then I had only heard about dying on the field of honor. You must understand that in my family children were trained very early for their future careers. I imagined the field of honor to be a large field, carefully plowed, reaching to the horizon, a fence around it, and over the wide gate a sign with large letters: Field of Honor. For some unknown reason you went there to die, and the whole people watched. Well, children . . ." The ghostly hands served coffee—it was real coffee—in transparent, Chinese cups. The lieutenant took a sip, his face, with the raised eyebrows and half-closed eyes, and his whole body showed his pleasure. When he put down his cup, he said: "Up to now none of my orderlies could make decent coffee. Franz knew right away. He told me he learned it in Istanbul." The coffee was really excellent, and I said so. "Yes? You think so. I am pleased." But it did not really seem to please him. At heart he was as indifferent to what I thought of his coffee as he was to me and to all that was going on outside (the artillery fire had grown heavier; now there was small-arms fire as well—it sounded as if someone were dropping dried peas on a board). He lived under his glass cloche like a man in a cave, and worshiped gods known only to himself. When he had to go outside, he kept his glass cloche around him, as the hermit always carried his cave within himself. Now and then he al-

lowed a casual visitor to admire his world but he never let anyone in. He was sufficient unto himself. Everything else—the visitor, the talk—was part of his world, but never as essential as the candlesticks and the burning candles. We sipped our coffee, had a few more glasses of slivovitz, and went on talking—that is to say, he went on talking. The noise outside gradually subsided, but he took no notice. And then I suddenly had the feeling that I was no longer wanted. The evening was over. I do not know how he communicated this to me. He did not say so, he did not give so much as a hint, and yet I knew positively that he wanted me to go. Never in my life have I been shown the door in such a fashion. After some preparatory words I rose to my feet. "Must you really go?" he said. "I've got some work to do," I lied. "Then naturally I shan't detain you. I hope to see you here. again soon. It will give me great pleasure." "I shall be delighted. It has been a wonderful evening. An evening through the looking glass," I said, searching for a suitable phrase to round things off. "Really? I'm delighted." This time he did seem pleased. I left with a feeling that something had been left unsaid; the evening had not been properly rounded off. Only later did I realize that it could not have ended differently. It was one of those evenings that are suddenly over before they have really begun, leaving one uncertain as to whether there was to be any sequel or not, though they call for some sort of sequel. I had read the first installment of a novel, and did not know whether the next would ever appear. All the same, I realized afterward that the hour and a half I had spent with him constituted a simple, genuine, and complete episode in itself. Only then did I begin to understand what Puhlmann meant when he said the lieutenant was a real gentleman, as old as the hills. How old is he really? I wondered as I reached my quarters. Twenty-five or twenty-six plus a thousand? Today is nothing but a continuation of yesterday, a minute interval of time between the past and the future, and there is nothing final or complete about it. Was that the source of his indifference? Was it his strength or his weakness? Outside it was slowly and with difficulty that I found my way back to reality. The further I got from the little peasant house the further I removed myself from the strange world of Lieutenant von Andres, as if distance in space went hand in hand with interior distance; and I was filled with a gentle melancholy: I had lost something I had never possessed. Never again have I spent an evening like that; and it was Lieutenant von Andres' last evening.

Next day our battalion was unexpectedly called on to storm the freight yards. The men said, not without pride, that it was too difficult a job for the other units in the division, so we had to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, as usual. One of the first to be severely wounded that day was Lieutenant von Andres. When Pfc. Buchholz and Grenadier Ziolek brought him to my station their uniforms were stained with his blood. I knelt beside him. He was unconscious.

"Is it serious?" the private asked. "I'm afraid so, yes." "He's quite cold," said Ziolek. "Is he dead?" asked the private. "No." The stump of the arm had been bound up quite skillfully. He needed a pressure bandage. He was suffering from shock. Shock, gentlemen, the professor had said, takes more lives than is generally believed, by peripheral-vascular failure through overexcitation of the vasodilator mechanism. Any questions? And Captain Surkamp had said: "They have abdominal bleeding, spasm, pallor, sometimes cyanosis, and the body cools, which is a bad sign. What they need is adrenalin and an oxygen mask and rest. And where are we to get oxygen masks?" "Is he going to die?" the private asked. "Who wants to think about death straightaway?" I replied. "Now, Fink . . ." "What did you say?" The boy was silent. "I saw it," said Ziolek. "It was quite sudden," the other said. "Will he pull through?" "Let's hope so," I said. "I saw it happen," said Ziolek.

Grenadier Ziolek The attack on the freight yards was held up. We came under heavy fire, particularly from the ravine halfway to the red-brick building in front of the station. We had to go to ground in a shallow trench we had taken, and the Russian barrage grew heavier and more accurate. We couldn't stay where we were: either we had to go back or go forward through the fire; and we had to do it before the Russian infantry rallied and covered the whole flat expanse with concentrated smallarms fire. Buchholz fired short, aimed bursts at the bushes from which the small-arms fire was coming, at the ravine, and at the red-brick building, which was too far away to be an effective target. Our objective was the ravine, which was of the kind often found in these parts. It was a good defensive position, with bushes growing all round the edges. The lieutenant was on our right, examining the ravine through his field glasses. "Buchholz, give me covering fire," he called out suddenly. He moved a few yards down the trench, climbed out, and stood erect on the parapet, in full view of the enemy. "Come on! Come on! Forward! Forward!" he shouted, loud enough to be heard above the din. He shouted at us to get out of the trench and go forward, pointing with outstretched arm toward the enemy. He held his submachine gun in his hand. Buchholz kept up sustained fire; I felt the cool cartridge belt slipping between my fingers, but I was not watching it. I watched the lieutenant, I couldn't take my eyes off him. He stood there, very erect, very tall, and very commanding, ignoring the heavy fire, and pointing toward

the enemy with the submachine gun in his hand, but looking back at us, shouting at us to go over the top and forward. My God, what a man! What happened next was what was bound to happen. The first men climbed out of the trench, and I had to hold myself back from going with them. They looked shyly and timidly at their company commander as if they feared him more than the Russian fire. They admired him, as I admired him. More and more men climbed out of the trench, and began to run, hesitating at first, but then faster and faster, and somebody shouted "Hurrah!" and others did the same, at first it was only faint, but then it grew louder, and a thrill went down my spine. Then it happened. I saw every detail. A shell exploded behind the lieutenant. Not very close. One had landed closer to him without harming him. But suddenly I saw that his arm had been blown off above the elbow, the submachine gun described an arc and fell to the ground, and the arm landed a little farther away; it looked just like a stick being thrown, but I saw that it was his arm, I saw the hand and the fingers. For a moment the lieutenant stood there, with the stump of his arm still pointing toward the enemy. His men were now advancing, he went on shouting and encouraging them as before. Then he slowly turned and saw what had happened. I saw it all, and I couldn't move or speak. I saw his face grow gray, I saw him shut his mouth and turn away, as if he could not bear the sight, or the blood pouring down his side, and he looked at me, me, Grenadier Ziolek, straight in the eye. Not very frightened, just astonished and incredulous. His lips moved as if he were going to say something, but no sound came. He wavered and dropped to his knees, without taking his eyes off me. He supported himself with his left hand, and I heard Buchholz shouting: "Come on, come on, ammunition!" I took no notice, I couldn't take my eyes off the lieutenant. His head fell back between his shoulders, he seemed to be trying hard to hold it up, but he couldn't, his steel helmet touched the ground, and even then I couldn't move. And then Buchholz jumped out of the trench and ran over to him.

The Doctor Lieutenant von Andres died before we were able to send him back. When he came to, I felt more hopeful; I thought he had got over the shock. I was busy dressing a harmless flesh wound; and, when I glanced at him, he was looking at me with bright, wideopen eyes. Slightly mocking, condescending, and aloof. They followed me when I went toward him, and held me fast when he said: "Busy, doctor?" "Pretty busy. How do you feel?" "Not too bad." His eyes did not leave me, the mockery in them deepened, and he said: "How did I do that?" "What?" "Sheep. Now they admire me, the fools. They think I'm a hero." "I don't understand."

"A flock of sheep. They follow the bellwether and do what he tells them, but the bellwether was unlucky. Now he doesn't want to go on." I understood, and yet I did not understand. He shut his eyes, and the atmosphere of distance all round him was almost tangible. A few minutes later he called me over and spoke so softly that I could hardly hear, and the mockery had left his eyes and his face, and its place had been taken by death. "Have my things packed up and sent home," he said. "My mother . . . It's very fragile . . . there's plenty of straw. Let Franz do it. Keep a glass for yourself. I'm curious to know . . . whether you manage to bring it through. My grandmother ... on her deathbed . . . field of honor . . . Shit. . . . Please see that I am buried in a clean shirt. . . . Uniform ... a sheet . . . over my head ... A coffin, perhaps. . . . Franz will know what to do. ... I don't want any shit. . . . Much too much shit everywhere. . . ." I worked feverishly. I called Captain Surkamp, but in vain. I gave an intravenous shot of adrenalin, but the arm into which I injected it was that of a dead man. A few minutes later he stopped breathing. I did as he asked me. I kept one of the singing glasses.

The Red-Brick Building Colonel Muller. We were subjected to heavy fire from the flank, from the main road, and from the wood over there, sir, and we couldn't get on. So I sent the Engineers forward, and they eliminated the enemy position in that building directly in front. General von Spaeth. / see. You mean the red-brick building? Colonel Muller. Yes, sir. It was a hard fob, and it took them a long time. The Russians seemed to want to hold it at all costs. They threw the Engineers out again. General von Spaeth. And? Colonel Muller. We were unable to take it back until I gave the job to Major Fechter. General von Spaeth. Did he manage it? Colonel Muller. He has a platoon in it now, I think. Sergeant Fink— General von Spaeth. Sergeant Fink? Isn't that the— Colonel Muller. Yes, sir, the sergeant with the German Gold Cross. Looks to me very much a case of the Knight's Cross now. General von Spaeth. How about the freight yards? Colonel Muller. J shall need artillery support and one or two Stuka formations. (Extract from conversation between Major General Ritter von Spaeth, divisional commander, and Colonel Franz Muller, commander of the 72nd (Motorized) Grenadier Regiment at the latter's regimental battle headquarters) There were twenty-six men under the command of Sergeant Fink. They had had six casualties storming the redbrick building—two killed, two slightly wounded, and two severely wounded. The building had been taken shortly before five A.M. Now it was 9:30, and four more wounded and two more dead lay in the big cellar. So Sergeant Fink could count on twenty men—quite a respectable number when you considered the fact that their task was to hold a single building, and a small one at that, particularly as it commanded the whole surrounding area. It offered a fine view of the open country to the north as well as to the east in the direction of Pushkamoye and to the southwest toward the railway embankment and the broad fields of corn beyond. To the south, in the direction of the freight yards, the view was blocked by a warehouse on the other side of the road. On the ground floor there were eight dead Russians, some of them mutilated beyond recognition by hand grenades and flame throwers; seven more on the first floor and four in the attic—nineteen altogether. The survivors had withdrawn across the road toward the freight yards. Opposite the red-brick building, and separated from it only by the width of the road and a dusty yard in which there stood a few peasants' carts, lay a massive, broad warehouse with small barred windows and a long loading ramp. This was still occupied by the Russians.

Occasionally a fleeting shadow or the white oval of a peering face appeared at one of the windows. The men of the assault battalion did not fire. As so often during a battle, a pause had set in during which each side left the other alone, glad of a respite and indignant at anyone who dared disturb the ominous and temporary quiet.

The Doctor I can't remember exactly how I got to the basement of the red-brick building. All I know is that at about half past nine Major Fechter came to our dressing station, took me aside, and showed me a dirty red building half concealed by a clump of trees about a mile and a half away. He said I should go there with a runner, take a medical orderly and supplies, establish myself in the basement, and do what I thought necessary. There were at least four wounded men there whom it was impossible to bring back. Puhlmann, the runner, and I loaded ourselves with medical supplies (at that time we still had plenty), and during the first, relatively undangerous part of the way the runner, a corporal, told me that there had been a continuous battle for the house since the evening before. First the Engineers had taken it, then the Russians had driven them out, and vain attempts to retake it had been made during the night. In the early hours of the morning it had been stormed by No. 1 Company, formerly commanded by Lieutenant von Andres. The job had been done by Sergeant Fink's platoon and a party of Engineers equipped with flame throwers. Sergeant Fink now had orders to hold the building—which would certainly not be easy, as the Russians had established themselves in the warehouse on the other side of the road. That was all he knew, and he only hoped that we would get there safe and sound. For a large part of the way we had to cross ground under Russian observation. When we at last stumbled exhausted through the back door of the half-destroyed building I didn't know how we had managed it, and I don't think the others did either, though perhaps the corporal knew. He leaned against the wall, panting, and said to me with a grin: "How does it feel to be a target, sir?" I couldn't answer. I was too exhausted; colored circles and dots were revolving before my eyes. As through a veil I saw the corporal's grinning, sweating face, and Puhlmann, who collapsed on the floor and sat there gasping for breath. And then I saw Sergeant Fink's big, pale face. "There are some wounded in the cellar, doctor," he said, quite unperturbed. "See what you can do for them." I went to the cellar, and did what I could. For one man I couldn't do much; he had been shot through the bladder and was dying. The other severe case, a man with a stab wound in the lungs, would have to be taken back pretty quickly if he was to have any chance. The other two could wait. One was a corporal with a simple flesh wound in the shoulder, and the other was wounded in the forearm. These must have been very painful, but were not serious. I also had a look at the two dead men in the cellar; one had been shot in the head and the other in the neck. After that there was nothing to do but wait, as the others were doing.

Noises from the outside world reached the cellar only faintly. Time passed slowly, and once or twice I had the feeling that it had stopped altogether; and soon I began to feel the strange atmosphere of the house. I had never known that fear could be a solid, almost tangible thing. I seemed to breathe it in. It filled every nook and cranny of the building; and later, when I walked around with Sergeant Fink, I actually thought I could smell it. It was not the paralyzing fear felt by a soldier in a foxhole or the collective, panic fear of a flightlike retreat, which I was to experience later, or even the normal fear before going into action, which I had seen in the faces of the troops on the morning before the battle. Gray, heavy, like an invisible mist it lay over the platoon; it spared no one, except perhaps Sergeant Fink. The collective fear of men condemned to impotence—it was what was sometimes known as the plague. The order was to eliminate and occupy this pocket of enemy resistance, and the order had been carried out. If the men had been ordered to advance by way of the warehouse and capture the freight yards, they would have done so, or they would have tried; but now they were stuck in the building and had to wait. The blind exhilaration of the assault had gradually faded and turned into its opposite. The men started again to see, think, and reason, and slowly fear crept into their hearts and took the place of the intoxicating, self-annihilating earlier mood. At first they just grinned at each other and swore at not being allowed to go on and beat up the Russians in the warehouse; this seemed an easy and obvious task. Then they prepared themselves for defense in accordance with their orders. They became aware of what every soldier knows, that a successful attack always leads to an enemy counterattack. But they were still under the influence of the high excitement of the successful battle. If the Russians had attacked at that moment, the little garrison, exhausted though it was, would have put up a vigorous and determined resistance; it would have been ready to fight to the last round for the position it had won. But nothing happened. Both the German and the Russian artillery left the building and its immediate area alone. The men sat or lay about, waiting for the counterattack that they knew was bound to come. They were left to themselves and to their thoughts, each man for himself, and gradually, very gradually, the situation they were in began to affect them. They started thinking again, and in the process each one of them became the center of his own thoughts, a center of a little world that was in deadly peril. A unit inspired by a single aim and a single will declines first into the state it was in before the attack; a body of men held together, not only by the usual sense of solidarity but also by grim foreboding about what lay ahead. But what lay ahead now was different. Before it had been their turn to attack, to storm, to annihilate, but now it was the enemy's turn to attack, to storm, and try to annihilate them; and every old soldier knows that it is always much harder to be on the defensive. Thus they finally reached that well-known, dangerous state of mind of which I was to have ample experience later, a state which in some circumstances can become permanent. Senior officers and staffs were often baffled by this apparently inexplicable phenomenon. The men still fought, but not as they had before, contemptuous of death and inspired by a single will. Orders

were either not carried out or carried out halfheartedly; disorder took the place of order, nothing clicked, and the result was ineffectiveness. Every man acted only for himself and fought only for himself, always with the idea of flight at the back of his mind; and, whenever an opportunity presented itself, he took to flight as the best way of self-preservation. Luck, it was said, had deserted the German side.

At about eleven o'clock Sergeant Fink came down to the cellar. He stood in the middle of the room, looking at the wounded lying along the wall. Then, not addressing himself to anyone in particular—I was not sure whether his question was directed at me—he said: "How are things?" "So-so," said the corporal with the shoulder wound. The man with the arm wound said: "It hurts like hell, sergeant. When are we going to get taken back?" "Tonight," said Sergeant Fink. "Why not till then?" "Can't an ambulance get through?" "No," said Sergeant Fink. "Hell," said the corporal. "I'm not going to stay here," the other man said. "I can't stand it any longer." "Nobody asked you whether you could," said Sergeant Fink, lookingly thoughtfully at the man with the chest wound, who was foaming at the mouth. "I'll go mad here," said the man with the arm wound. "I want to get out of here." "We all want to get out of here," said the corporal. "Me too. Shut up!" He looked up at Sergeant Fink as if expecting approval of what he had said, but Fink ignored him. He turned abruptly and said to me: "Come with me, doctor." Outside he said: "How long will they last?" "Who?" "Those two." "They ought to be taken away immediately," I said. "Impossible. Didn't you see for yourself?" "If they have to wait till tonight, I'm afraid they won't make it." "What about Sperling?" "Maybe another hour or two, maybe not so long." "And Heck?" "The same." "What's the matter with him?" "Shell splinter in the lung. Internal hemorrhage and congestion." "Congestion?" "Yes," I replied, trying not to sound too irritated. I gave him a medical explanation. "If he isn't taken away and operated on quickly, he'll die. Do you follow me?" The sergeant stood in front of me, tall, broad-shouldered, with a stony, immobile face, and looked at me. His features gave no sign of any answer to my question or of any thought at all. Then his mouth spoke, while his face remained dead.

"I'll probably need Grabnar and perhaps Bantz. They can still walk." "What for?" "Messages, ammunition." "Impossible," I said. "Impossible?" The way he asked this question plainly implied the answer. "They're wounded," I said, but he was not listening. "Come along with me. Perhaps it'll do you good to see the men." He turned and walked up the steps, and I followed him. Silently we went through the whole house. Everything was smashed and burned. In one room there was a pile of wet paper, covered with unintelligible Russian letters. There was a stink of urine and feces. The men were crouching at the windows and the shell holes in the walls. One man wished me good morning with a forced smile. Where did I know him from? Every now and then we had to stoop, and there were one or two places where we had to move quickly. The bodies of Russian soldiers were everywhere. Parts of bodies. I began to imagine they were beginning to smell. "You must have these removed, sergeant," I said. He nodded. "What can one do against fleas, doctor?" a man asked. "There are masses of fleas everywhere. Look at them hopping about!" "Shoot them," said Sergeant Fink. We crushed the fragments of a broken plate beneath our feet. Three or four deafening shots were fired from one of the rooms, then silence. I took a big step to avoid treading on the entrails of a dead Russian. On the second floor Sergeant Fink stopped behind a young grenadier and looked out over his shoulder. The man's face was sunken and ashen, he looked at the sergeant with fear in his eyes, and the corners of bis mouth trembled. Fear radiated from him. A private squatted in the corner, chewing sunflower seeds with half-shut eyes and spitting out the husks; his submachine gun lay across his thighs and his steel helmet was tipped over his forehead. "Palm!" Fink said, and the private stirred himself, opened his eyes, and stopped chewing. "Sergeant?" "Come over here and keep a lookout. And you, Gross-mann, go downstairs to Corporal Nickols. You relieve his No. 2; he should come up here." "Yes, sergeant," said the grenadier, and started crawling toward the door. Sergeant Fink said, his voice quiet, cold, menacing: "Grossmann!" The soldier stopped dead, but did not look up. "Stand up!" Grossmann stood up. "Repeat your orders!" The soldier, opened his mouth but couldn't get out a word. His body wavered, and he shivered as in a high fever. "Repeat your orders!" The man mumbled and stuttered, and only at the third attempt did he succeed in repeating Sergeant Fink's orders. Then Fink moved on, and the soldier who had taken the man's place said: "The poor devil's had a bellyful."

When we went on, the sergeant started muttering: "I'll show 'em! I'll show 'em!" I didn't know whom he meant: the Russians or his own men. He had assembled his small reserve on the ground floor under the staircase, where it was relatively safe from artillery fire. The men were lying or sitting about on the dirty stone floor. Fink called out: "Professor!" "Yes, sergeant." A slight man sprang to his feet. He had a narrow, clever face and wore steel-rimmed glasses. "Drexler!" This time the man who rose was a robust, slow-moving, deliberate type. "You and Hildebrandt clear away the bodies," Fink said. "Just throw them out the windows." Then he said to Hildebrandt: "Professor, it will give you an opportunity to reflect on the transience of human life." Hildebrandt said nothing. "What are you to do?" "Reflect on the transience of human life, sergeant," said Hildebrandt. There were some quiet, rather forced, titters. "If you come to any conclusion, let me know," shouted Sergeant Fink. "Now, get moving." I walked past the men and went to the cellar. I wondered what Fink's objective had been in making me accompany him. No doubt he wanted to show his men that a doctor was there. I had underrated his intelligence. I stayed in the cellar until the Russians attacked. When Fink's platoon was driven out, I was left behind. Perhaps it all happened so quickly that there was no time to warn me that the platoon was evacuating the house.

Pfc. Hildebrandt Drexler took the body by the shoulders and said: "Come on, professor." I felt I was going to be sick, and so to gain time I began cleaning my glasses. My hands were trembling. They felt quite strange, as if they did not belong to me, and I could hardly breathe. This was the last straw! Obviously I had that young sawbones to thank for this. The bastard, throwing his weight around. You must have these bodies removed, sergeant. Danger of infection. Danger of infection? Nonsense! In two or three days' time, perhaps, but not now. And of course Sergeant Fink had to pick on me. Professor, you attach so much importance to cleanliness, clean out the latrines. Reconnaissance patrol, come on, professor, you've got four eyes, so you can see twice as much as anyone else. Take this message, professor, you're lightly built, so you can run. And now, throw out the bodies, professor, it'll give you an opportunity to reflect on the transience of human life. Why did that bloody doctor have to come here? "Well, professor, how much longer are you going to be?" Drexler asked impatiently. I couldn't put it off any longer. I put on my glasses and bent down, averting my eyes. "He won't bite, man, he's dead," said Drexler, and I looked at the body.

"War stinks," I said, and went over into the corner and vomited. I heard Drexler's voice: "Oh, God, now he's being sick." He went on grumbling, and when I turned round again he was dragging the body along the wall. Under the window he crouched, and put the body in position. "Well? Are you coming?" he said, and waited for me to go over and help him. "Keep down, you idiot!" I crouched. "Come over here!' |> "All right," I said, and went over, keeping my head down. "You grab the legs, it's easier. Now lift. God, what a weight! He had plenty to eat, and they say the Russians are starving. Out you go, comrade!" We tipped the body out, taking care not to expose ourselves. "Well, that's number one," said Drexler, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, as if to clean them. Then he looked at me, with a well-meaning smile. "Professor, you're acting as if you'd arrived yesterday." "I can't get used to it," I said. "I know that war stinks," he said, and it felt good to hear him say that. I began to recover a bit; though each time I had to touch another body, I had to make a tremendous effort to overcome my revulsion. Fink knew perfectly well what he was doing when he picked on me. If only all the bodies had been whole, it wouldn't have been so bad; but there were a lot which we had to throw out literally bit by bit. While we were busy in the basement, the doctor came out of his room, pointed with his foot to a heap of entrails that were lying on the floor, and said: "That, too." This was too much for me, and I could have wept with rage, but I swallowed it and cleared away the mess—God, how I hated him for it. Then we went upstairs again, and after we had tipped the seventh man out the window into the yard, the Russians attacked. When I thought about it afterward, I always had the feeling that there had to be a connection between the bodies we threw out and the Russian attack. They must have been infuriated at seeing their dead comrades being thrown out like that one after another. In any case, they attacked with the most extraordinary fury. It was stupid, of course, because far worse things than that continually happen in war. For instance, the way Fink shot down that young Russian who crept out of a knocked-out tank and begged for his life. He begged and begged, and Fink patted him on the shoulder, and then suddenly shot him down like a dog. What can one do about it? War is war, isn't it? Removing dead bodies from a captured position or house is perfectly in order, and nobody would spend a day or even five minutes in the company of stinking corpses if he could possibly get rid of them. And how else were we to get rid of them? Did they expect us to bury them? Where? But perhaps that was just the trouble. Later, when the Russians reoccupied the house, they did exactly the same; but that time the bodies were in a different uniform, though by now you could hardly tell the difference from a few yards away. They lay in indiscriminate piles in the yard, God rest their souls; and later, after we took the building again and the Russians drove us out and again re-occupied it, in the garden

as well; and I hope they sorted themselves out in heaven and found their torn and shattered limbs in case they don't have decent artificial limbs there. Later that building became a nightmare to me, though I don't know why, because I had had many experiences like that earlier and there were plenty more to come. Perhaps it was because I ran past the cellar without telling the doctor and his clubfooted orderly that we were clearing out. That's quite possible. I don't know. After the battle for that building the only survivors of the platoon were Drexler, Fink, and myself. Everybody else was either killed or wounded.

The Doctor The atmosphere of the red-brick building began to affect me. I was afraid. But it was easier for me than for the troops. I was not there to kill or be killed, I was a doctor, a helper, I stood apart, obeyed other laws; I was not involved, I was free of the emotions and passions to which the others were subjected. I went back to the cellar, glad that the round was over, proud of my own importance and indispensability, which Fink had implicitly admitted by taking me with him. The feeling of my own power and my unassailable position as an outsider made me look at the soldiers with a slightly condescending sort of pity. During those hours of waiting I was stronger even than Fink, though his men's lives were in his hands. He called on me for what he was unable to provide. To them he meant battle, the prospect of battle, the certainty of battle with all its perils; but I meant consolation and hope and confidence. But then I caught the eye of Private Hildebrandt. I pointed out to him some remains of a body that were lying about. For a fraction of a second he looked at me as if I had struck him with a whip, and then cast me a sidelong, surreptitious glance. In his eyes and distorted face there was revulsion and revolt, blind rage and hatred. For a fraction of a second we looked at each other, and then he dropped his eyes and swept the entrails onto his shovel with a piece of wood. When he walked up the steps, I looked at him in consternation. He did not turn, and I searched in vain for something to call after him. He disappeared, and left a changed world behind him. After he looked at me like that, I was no longer the same person. I was no longer apart from events, I was involved in them, engaged in them up to the hilt, and when I went back to the room where the wounded were I wondered uneasily why he hated me. Soon afterward the Russians attacked. At first we thought that the noise overhead, the rattle of machine-guns and the explosion of hand grenades, was just one of the usual exchanges of fire—until we heard the shouts and yells. They rose and fell, stopped and started again, and had little to do with the human voice. There was also the sound of loud, trampling footsteps. The private with the shoulder wound sat up, listened, and said: "Now they're attacking." His voice expressed not so much fear as relief that the paralyzing quiet and stillness were over. He merely announced what was happening; there were many possible consequences, but the most probable was that the Russians would be driven off.

"Just wait. Fink will show them," he said, more to himself than to us. The thought of Fink had a reassuring effect on me, too; for behind him was his reputation as a fearless fighter who never let himself be beaten. We had exchanged roles. Before, when the plague, which he could not explain or control, had been gaining the upper hand, when he saw his men weakening and growing afraid, he had pinned his hopes on me. But now that the inevitable Russian attack had begun it was I who was reassured by the knowledge of his presence. But his reputation had no effect on the private with the wounded arm. As soon as he heard the yelling overhead he was seized with panic. Though he was semiconscious from the morphine shot I had given him to relieve the pain, he tried to get up but failed. He rolled about on his belly, and started crawling on all fours toward the door, yelling in a shrill, unnatural voice: "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" Puhlmann and I stopped him, but he thrashed about with his arms and legs and yelled, wept, and whimpered. We had to put him back in his place by force, and I told Puhlmann to get some more morphine. Puhlmann went over into the corner and started fumbling about among the medical supplies, until I shouted at him: "Pull yourself together! It's right in front of you!" While we were still busy with the private, the corporal rose to his feet and said: "I'll go and have a look round." "You stay here!" I shouted at him, but he took no notice. With my needle in the private's arm, I helplessly watched him make for the door. But before he reached it a violent explosion shook the walls. The door flew open, a thick cloud of dust burst into the room, and he was thrown to the floor. I extracted the needle and wiped the dust from my eyes—I was half-blinded, and there was a gentle buzzing in my ears. I went over to the corporal, who slowly got up on all fours and stared at the door. Something was missing, I didn't know what it was, until I suddenly realized. Everything was quiet. I knelt beside the corporal and said: "Has something happened?" My voice sounded much too loud in the tense, almost tangible, silence. He didn't answer. He stared fixedly at the door, his lips moved, but no sound came. And then, suddenly, there were noises. Distant voices. Footsteps, hesitant, cautious, persistent footsteps, stopping and then starting again, dead silence, the sound of breathing, my own heartbeats, the gray doorway, the slight buzzing in my ears. Slowly I rose to my feet, the private whimpered behind me, dead silence, footsteps, a muffled, inquiring voice came from where the wounded men were lying: "What—what?" Footsteps, near, nearer, down the steps, heavy breathing, footsteps, stopping and coming on again, strange voices, a short, sharp explosion outside, silence, a strange voice called out, more footsteps, and then he stood in the doorway. He did not speak. Crouching, pointing his submachine gun at us, he stood there, and looked at us with half-closed eyes. It was a tense, ordinary face, pale in the half-light, un-shaved, with mouth half open. The muzzle of the submachine gun slowly described a semicircle round the room and then went back again. The tension in his face gradually relaxed, he quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and called out something to those behind him without taking his eyes off us. Another voice answered, quick, confident footsteps came down the steps, another, bigger man appeared behind him, pushed him aside, came in, walked over, and stopped in front of me.

In the hand hanging loosely by his side there was a pistol. He looked all round the room, his eyes lingered for a moment on the wounded men, then on Puhlmann, and then he looked at me. He said something, and pointed with his pistol at the wounded men. "I don't understand." My voice sounded as if my mouth were stuffed with cotton wool. "Doctor, eh?" he said. I nodded. "Soldiers kaput, eh?" he said, repeating his gesture with the pistol. "Yes." The tension inside me began slowly to relax. "You—here!" What he said was authoritative and unmistakable. "No!" He pointed to the door with his pistol. Then he said something in Russian, pressed the muzzle of his pistol against my stomach, and said: '"Kaput!" There was a broad grin on his bony, dirty face. "Understand?" He took off his steel helmet, turned, and left. A few moments later another man came and collected the wounded men's weapons, while the first man did not take his eyes off us for a moment. The man who collected the weapons went out, and the first man leaned against the doorpost, laid his submachine gun on his lower arm, and took a cigarette from his breast pocket. The corporal, who was still on all fours, now retreated to the wall. The Russian looked at him with interest and said something, apparently expecting an answer. Then he suddenly raised his submachine gun, pointed it at the corporal, said "Boom!" and laughed. "The man has a sense of humor," said Puhlmann, and I was surprised how calm his voice sounded. "Shall I offer him a light?" "You—no talk," said the Russian. "He can talk German, too," Puhlmann muttered. The Russian produced a box of matches from his trouser pocket—his trousers were far too big for him—and struck a match. The flickering, reddish light illuminated his face for a moment. He watched us carefully from behind his knitted brows. Outside there were some short sharp detonations, the sound of automatic weapons, and the yelling started again. The Russian soldier grew uneasy. He threw away his cigarette, held his submachine gun in both hands, threw a rapid glance behind him, looked at us, and his face hardened. "Dear God!" I heard Puhlmann muttering, "Dear God!" The yelling outside grew louder. More detonations and a smell of burning. The Russian soldier raised his submachine gun and said something. He looked around again, this time a little longer. Outside there was a high-pitched, shrill cry, footsteps, running, shouting, the rattle of automatic weapons, and the voice of the corporal loud and triumphant: "They're coming back!" "Dear God!" said Puhlmann. "Dear God!" The Russian soldier looked at us. Annoyed, he shook his head, pointed his submachine gun at the corporal, called out: "You—quiet! Kaput!" and fired a short, deafening burst at the bare wall. Smoke and dust. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again the Russian had gone. The corporal called out: "That's us! That's us! Fink! D'you hear?"

He pulled a pistol from his boot and charged the magazine. This made him grimace with pain. When he looked up again, there was crazy joy in his eyes. "What do you say now, doctor, eh?" he shouted, to drown the noise of battle outside the house and apparently also inside it. "What do you say now?" I don't know how long it lasted this time, I think it was longer than before. Dust, explosions. Clouds of smoke came through the door. A smell of burning, and the yelling went on. We stared at the door. We waited. We hoped they wouldn't come back and fetch us—or come back and . . . Then the noise of battle grew fainter. But it was not over yet. A tall slender figure appeared in the doorway, hesitant and uncertain, groping with one hand and holding the other to his chest. "A Russian!" Puhlmann exclaimed. The Russian came in. He supported himself against the doorpost, struggled and gasped for breath. Strands of fair hair hung over his white face, he shook his head as if trying to shake off something, let go of the doorpost, then held it again, wiped his eyes with the back of his other hand, started calling out something—I couldn't understand what, but it sounded desperate. Before I had a chance to do anything there were two loud reports behind me. The Russian doubled up, his legs gave way, and he slumped to the floor, struggling and screaming. Then he stopped screaming, his body straightened out, his heels drummed once or twice on the concrete floor, there was a long death rattle, he lay still. The corporal said, loud and distinct: "They would have killed us all!" "You damned dirty swine!" said Puhlmann. I turned. The corporal looked at the dead Russian and repeated, loud and stubborn: "They would have killed us all!" "He was wounded," Puhlmann said quietly, and I was shocked when I saw his face and eyes. "He wanted help, and you killed him." Before I could stop him he leaped at the corporal with a speed I would never have credited him with, grabbed him with both hands, lifted him and shook him, shouting: "You killed him, you killed him. I'd like to kill you—you dirty swine!" The corporal yelled with pain, and I had great difficulty in separating them. "What's going on here?" said Fink's voice behind me. Large, filling the whole doorway, he stood there and looked at us. "He's gone mad," the corporal said. "He came and wanted help, and he shot him," Puhlmann shrieked. "Whom?" "They would have killed us all," said the corporal. "The Russian?" Fink glanced at the dead man at his feet. "Yes!" shrieked Puhlmann. "He was wounded, one could see!" "I didn't," said the corporal. "They would have killed us all." "He killed him," shrieked Puhlmann. "So what?" said Sergeant Fink. "He's crazy," said the corporal. "It's happened often enough, or hasn't it?" "Swine!" Puhlmann whispered, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

"Get everything ready to move," Fink said to me. "An armored troop carrier is coming for the wounded. You"—he indicated Puhlmann with a movement of his chin—"and this idiot are staying here." "He tore my whole bandage off," said the corporal.

We managed to get the wounded away. The battle for the red-brick building went on for the rest of the day and half the night before it finally remained in German hands. In the course of it Fink's platoon was almost completely wiped out; most of them killed or severely wounded. After the Russians recaptured it for the second time—this time I received proper warning to evacuate—I was not allowed to return. I set up a new first-aid station about half a mile away. The only survivors of the platoon were Fink, Hildebrandt, and Drexler. A day or two later I was ordered to report to the major, to tell him the story of our brief period of captivity. "Weren't you warned that the building was going to be evacuated?" he asked. "No, sir." "You received no warning at all?" "No, sir." "How did the Russians behave?" "Well, sir." "Good. Thank you. You may go." "May I mention something else, sir?" "Certainly." "Corporal Netschermann unnecessarily killed a wounded Russian who came down to the cellar because he knew there was a doctor there." "Shortly before the Russians withdrew?" "Yes, sir." "Are you sure that the Russian was coming to you for medical assistance?" "Yes, sir." "And you think that Netschermann knew that?" "He couldn't help seeing it, sir." "You think so? Haven't you heard that the Russians often shoot prisoners before withdrawing?" "I have heard so, sir." "Self-defense, Doctor. I know Corporal Netschermann. He is a good, brave, intelligent soldier. And you—you are a novice." "Sir, it was cold-blooded murder." He looked at me for a few moments. His eyes were hard and expressionless. Then he said slowly: "Braun, we are at war. Don't use big words. Thank you. Wait outside for further instructions." I left the room with a feeling of self-satisfaction. It is always agreeable to be a champion of justice. But at the same time I felt half ready to withdraw. The major's hard, biting voice, the cold, impersonal way he looked at me, were not a good omen. There is in all of us a streak of

martyrdom, a streak of Don Quixote and Michael Kohlhaas. Airing it from time to time, particularly in the presence of one's superiors, makes one feel good. But one shouldn't go too far. Martyrdom loses its attraction at the point where it becomes painful. Michael Kohlhaas was a noble character, worthy of the highest respect, and at the same time a pathetic crackpot; and in the last resort Don Quixote was merely absurd. I have never met anybody who didn't want to be taken seriously. Who was I to defy the major? It was obvious to any reasonable person that in the end I'd come off second best. High-mindedness is an excellent thing, but what is the good of it if it ends in defeat? So I started finding all sorts of excuses for the corporal. He was an experienced soldier who had been through a lot, and he knew much more about war than a novice like me. And was it not forgivable for a man who had spent a long time under the continued strain of battle to lose his self-control? My excitement and indignation gradually ebbed away. I knew that I should never feel indifferent to the Russian's death, but the same applied to Lieutenant von Andres' death; both had lifted the veil of the mystery: war. And it always was war. Protesting was useless. I must put up with it, and that was that. What else lay in store for me before I would cease to be a novice? My spirit of compromise didn't do me any good, however. The incident put me permanently in the major's bad books. I couldn't understand why. Because I had argued with him? And Sergeant Fink began to hate me. I waited outside battalion headquarters in accordance with the major's orders. Fink nodded to me when he went in to see the major. He came out ten or fifteen minutes later, stopped in front of me, and looked at me. Never in my life have I seen such cold, deadly, murderous hatred as there was in Fink's slightly veiled eyes. He said nothing, he just stared at me, then abruptly turned and went away. I don't know what passed between him and the major. It must certainly have concerned events in the red-brick building. Did the major blame him for having left me behind? But why should Sergeant Fink hate me? Soon afterward the major sent a message that he didn't need me any more. I went back to the regimental aid post feeling ill at ease. I soon forgot the incident, however. It would have been better if I had counted on Fink's hatred in the future.

The Bridge This feat of arms by the assault battalion and in particular No. 1 Company, commanded by Sergeant Fink, was of vital importance for the advance of the division and the units behind it. The establishment of a bridgehead on the east bank of the Voroga was made possible by the speed, determination, courage, and resourcefulness of individual members of the battalion. If the Bolsheviks had succeeded in blowing up the railway bridge, it would have had unforeseeable consequences for the future course of the action. As it was, however, the bridge came into German hands practically undamaged, and the road eastward was open for the divisional tanks. (Conclusion of account by official war reporter of Battle for railway bridge immediately south of Pushkarnoye)

Puhlmann You can usually tell what a man is like during his first days at the front, especially if he goes straight into heavy action. It gives him a shock, and it's not a bit of good his trying to sham; he is as naked to his fellows as on the day he was born. Most men try to bluster it out, but a chicken remains a chicken no matter how hard it plumps out its chest, and the best shoemaker can't make a shoe that will make my clubfoot into an ordinary one. But I can't make out Dr. Braun. Sometimes he treats the whole war like a game, he's like a boy playing Indians, and sometimes, when a badly wounded man is brought in, he stands there and says nothing for a moment before he starts dealing with him, and I worry about him. He works harder than any doctor I have ever known. But he's always the center of trouble, he can't help it, it follows him like a shadow, and it's only too obvious that men like him sooner or later get it. I like him. So does Captain Surkamp. Sergeant Fink hates him like the plague, and I don't think the major likes him either. People like the major can't help disliking loners who upset the herd. I wasn't surprised that Fink made him swim the river during the battle for the bridge, though by rights he should have stayed on this side. The doctor had no business on the other side, a medical orderly would have been enough. The doctor knew, I could tell, and I could also tell that he was terribly afraid of swimming the river, and he could have said no, but he didn't. All he said was: "A cool bath at this time of year will do me good." He tries his utmost, he does everything he can, he wants desperately to belong; like me, or the captain, who is an odd customer and sometimes makes the most extraordinary speeches, but belongs all the same. It's better to be one of the herd, especially now; you're less conspicuous, you're more likely to get through, it's cozier and more comfortable. But, no matter if he swims the river a hundred times, it won't make any difference; they'll admire him and they'll say: "Isn't he something!" but he'll never belong, and never to this unit. One could ask: why not? This battalion is a bunch of loners, almost every one of them could fight the war on his own— leave out

the last draft, they aren't up to the old standard. Still, the battalion is a herd, though a herd of a special kind. A wolf pack, maybe. We think we are a crack unit, we can do anything. We're right, more or less, and division and army think so, too, and that has advantages and disadvantages. When the others can't manage a job, they send for us, as with the red-brick building or the bridge. We're always kept up to full establishment, senior officers pay us visits—generally only when we're resting, of course—we're mentioned in army orders, we get more Iron Crosses than others do—two of our privates first class have the Knight's Cross—we get better supplies and more drink—not through official channels—-we get written up in the papers, and all this gives us a tremendous lift. We're something special. And I'm afraid that this special battalion will break the young doctor's neck. Perhaps it's because he's not content just to obey orders and fall in with everything. Obeying orders, I think is in everybody's blood. You obey orders even when nothing could be more unpleasant—staying in a foxhole, for instance, when the other side is attacking and you would much rather run away. Or when you have to shoot two former comrades because they were too frightened to stick it any longer and ran away and wandered around for three or four days till they were picked up—desertion in the face of the enemy. I've seen it. Captain Surkamp was my chief at the time and he had to certify their deaths, though obviously it was only a formality. How could a man stay alive with five bullets in him? What surprised me most was that there were five bullets. Not one member of the firing squad had missed, you could tell from the bodies. They all took careful aim, and that they all knew the deserters and had had drinks with them and told jokes and more or less shared their last cigarette with them made no difference. Orders are orders. I don't want to make myself out to be better than I am. I gave Handsome Toni, as we called that oily little pimp, an alibi. I solemnly swore in court that at the time Puppchen was murdered he was sleeping off a hangover in my room. Puppchen was a fascinating little beast who led Toni a terrible dance. She got a silver fox fur coat from a fat industrialist from the Ruhr, and she had a dream of a flat, with mahogany furniture and a pink telephone and a black bath and a special extra washbasin for washing the lower part of her body, and so on and so forth. She was so expensive that she was practically a part of big industry herself, but she was quite nice, and I was very fond of her, and not only because she let me go with her twice, just because she had been told that it would be amusing to go with a man with a clubfoot. But she didn't mind my clubfoot; afterward I could understand why men were crazy about her, in fact for a time I was crazy about her myself and for weeks I went about moonstruck, couldn't eat, wanted to hang myself, you know the sort of thing I mean. Of course Toni strangled her. Everyone knew she wouldn't have anything to do with him, and that he was half-mad with jealousy. He could have had ten girls on every finger of each hand, they used to buzz round him like wasps round a honeypot, but he wanted only Puppchen. And she said: "He's revolting, he makes me sick, I'd rather starve than go with him." I couldn't stand him either, and in my frank opinion he would have been better a head shorter. All the same I gave him a cast-iron alibi—just because Nelly said so. Nelly was the boss at Mme. Rosa's. She was just as crazy about Toni as he was about Puppchen, and it didn't do to get into her bad books. There were those two pimps who talked too much about certain things that happened at Mme. Rosa's—something to do with cocaine or opium or something—so one of them was found

in the Spree and the other was never seen or heard of again, he just vanished, vanished from the face of the earth. Did I want to end up in the Spree? Did I want to vanish from the face of the earth? I preferred giving him his alibi. I don't believe there's anything men won't do if they are ordered to. There was that partisan village in the Ukraine that was wiped out. The ones who >did the wiping out were the SD people, and we marched through only an hour or two after they had finished. This must have been the result of an administrative oversight, because it was rare for ordinary infantry to see that sort of thing. The houses were still burning, a few ragged civilians were piling up the bodies. The bodies were mostly those of women and children, and a few old men. I can tell almost at once how a person has been killed; in most of the bodies there were no bullet wounds, the heads had been smashed in with rifle butts or spades. Yes, there were a few babies with smashed-in heads—one of them was in the ditch next to a telegraph pole. We all saw it, and had to look away, but we couldn't help seeing it, it was ghastly. Some of our people went wild, they wanted to shoot it out with the SD people, when we came across them at the end of the village. What surprised me most was how ordinary they looked. They were standing around, smoking and talking like soldiers all over the world when they have been allowed to fall out for a few minutes, and they were just like us. "What are you so excited about?" they said to us. "This was a partisan village, and it had to be wiped out so those damned bandits couldn't hide there." "What about the babies, were they partisans?" one of us shouted. "Couldn't even crawl, but they were partisans, were they?" So they said they were all bandits, children of ten could shoot like trained marksmen, and children younger than that would soon grow up, and the women were all snipers, and everybody knows what they do when they take a German prisoner. Cut off his ears and nose and so on, we had no idea what the struggle against the partisans was like, and how difficult it was. Too bad the men had all got away, and they told us to get a move on before they got angry. Our people didn't take this lying down, of course, and I don't know what would have happened if a senior SD officer and our major hadn't turned up. They ordered us to calm down, and so we did calm down. Later our people wondered how those butchers managed to sleep at night after dashing a baby's brains out against a telegraph pole, and I explained that they slept just as soundly as we did and had just as happy dreams about girls and homes and Lili Marlene, and we had no right to think we were special, because in certain circumstances we would have done exactly the same, it all depended on which way you were steered. And what you were steered with. And what were you steered with? With orders. Orders are orders . . . You can't give orders to burn down a village and kill old men and women and children if the men who have to do the job won't play. When you do it with a spade you get more out of it than you do just from shooting. Or does anybody seriously maintain that we're any better than Neanderthal men? We're like a fine house with gingerbread and a lot of architecture and a saint under the gables and St. Christopher protect us written underneath, and suddenly there's an earthquake or a bomb drops, and the gingerbread and the whitewash and St. Christopher and all the fine architecture fall in, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble.

I'm a pile of bricks myself. Didn't I perjure myself? Am I not just as responsible for the dead baby in the ditch as the man who dashed its brains out? Am I not guilty of every evil act done anywhere in the world, even if I don't know anything about it? It's this business of orders that will do for the doctor in the end. There are some buildings which remain architecture even if they fall in. There are people who have gradually put so much whitewash over the Neanderthaler inside them that, no matter what the consequences, they are incapable of doing that sort of thing, either with a spade or with a gun. They don't say orders are orders, but, no, I can't carry out orders like that. I'm not a Neanderthaler, I'm the whitewash. They can't help behaving like that, even if they want to, and that's why they are and remain loners. Perhaps in an ordinary division a loner has a chance, but not with us. An ordinary herd can sometimes tolerate an outsider or even just throw him out, but a pack of wolves tears him to pieces. And it's quite right, because simply by being there, without saying anything, he disturbs the pack, raising doubts about the rights and wrongs of what it is doing. You don't need second sight to see that; it's just common sense. That business with the bridge didn't happen by chance.

Captain Surkamp The attack on the bridge really began six miles farther back. The young doctor and I sat in the shadow of a former office building. The sun burned down with a glimmering, stinging sharpness; and a biting, gray film of dust lay over the town. The faces of the soldiers glistened with sweat, they had unbuttoned their tunics and rolled up their sleeves. Motionless, steel helmets pushed out of their faces, they sat in their vehicles, weapons between their knees. Once in a while, not often, a heavy Russian shell screamed over our heads and exploded somewhere in the town. Only a few lifted their heads to watch the flight of the shells, most remained impassive. A few ragged children with shaved heads hung around the street watching the soldiers. A small half-starved dog sniffed around the gutters and jumped aside when anybody passed. We smoked. "If this goes on, we'll have some completely unmilitary casualties to look after." "What?" asked Dr. Braun. "Sunstroke." "When one says Russia one usually thinks of cold and snow. Ice. Frostbite. But the heat is almost as bad." I nodded. He was right. This country seemed to consist of extremes. When it froze, it was incredibly cold, the wind went right through you, and in summer it was as hot as Africa. When there was dust, it came up to your ankles, and when it rained for a day, everything got stuck in the mud. And—didn't the same hold true for the people who lived here? I looked at the dog and asked Braun, who sat quiet beside me: "Have you noticed that there are hardly any dogs around?"

He looked at me in surprise and smiled. In the bright sunlight his eyes were almost golden and as always questioning and searching and a little dreamy; they did not seem to belong to his strong, sinewy body, which was always right there, the body of a hunter or warrior, never lost in the vague shadowy world of dreams. "Perhaps they ate them," he said. "Possible. Do you think the Russians have humane societies?" "No. What gives you that idea?" I loved to surprise him. He always looked astonished and almost childlike. The world is full of miracles. New and good and bad miracles happen every minute, every hour. And a little sadly I thought that I had lost that gift. Or— perhaps I never had it. Hadn't my world always been one of hard and sometimes brutal reality and never a dream, the way it was for him, perhaps not all the time, but always full of surprises? "Here we talk about dogs and humane societies, and others talk about girls and food and tell stories. . . . Why do soldiers hardly ever talk about the war?" he asked. "I have thought about this quite a lot." "I haven't." "Why?" "Why should they talk about it? They live through it." They live through it, I thought. The farther away the more one talked about it, discussed and argued. Here one kept silent. Self-defense. One could not have stood the constant tension if one had thought and talked about it all the time, what one lived through and what always awaited one, today, tomorrow, in one and probably another two or three years? Now, at this moment, it seemed to me that it had never begun and would never end: it was always today, now, a summer day before the attack, for all time, and it will be that way for all time. Always like today, now, this summer day before the attack, for all time. The moments I was living through now seemed to reach out of the gray past over the short, conscious seconds of the present into the nebulous, unclear, but already ordained future. I had sat here for a thousand years, next to the young doctor, the dog and his hunger were a thousand years old, and the children with their unfathomable, suspicious eyes, their rags, their hunger, pavement, engines humming around the corner, the explosions of the grenades. No miracles, no surprises. What awaits me? I knew it. Resignation. What am I doing here? And what would I do somewhere else? It was always the same. I threw the half-smoked cigarette at the dog, he quickly jumped aside and then, slowly sniffing, sneaked up to it again. I thought those eternal questions will kill the young man. What? Does it make sense? Why, why, why? That's how it was: now we were waiting, and later we had to take the bridge, and he, Braun, had to go with the assault battalion. . . . That's how it was. "I think," he said suddenly, "all those men—" he pointed with his chin at the waiting vehicles—"they are all potentially diseased, if you can call wounds a disease." "Yes, and?" "And I am considering how it can be done, that they willingly or perhaps—believingly, yes, that's the right word, that they believingly come to the doctor, in this case me, when the disease breaks out. When they are wounded." "You can't do much," I said. "They believe, or they don't. Do what you think is right, then it'll work. Keep to the orders."

He began to speak slowly, without really listening to me: "For the first few days I thought I knew what I had to do. Fine, I was an army doctor and my duties were clear, orders, commands ... I had to give the wounded first aid, get them back to you as fast as possible, and if I was working with you send them to the main dressing station. What happened to them there was none of my worry. Bandages, antitetanus shots, sometimes morphine, shock treatment, fill out and sign the report, so long, my boy! The same as with a disease. Jaundice. Except the small things . . . boils, sore feet, inflamed eyes . . . that we did ourselves. Just get them out, they get properly treated farther back." "Yes, and?" I didn't know what he was driving at. "I think I know what I have to do," he said and looked at me and his eyes came from very far away. "The old and, especially in the Prussian army, important question whether one is first a doctor and then an officer never bothered me. I knew that this could become a problem under certain circumstances ... I have met some doctors who resented this. I think they felt they did not belong to the community of officers, the ones who bore arms, they resented the natural contrast between doctors and the military. We were always told: if it is in the best interest of the unit . . . Then this was clear. Now not. Not for me. The best interest of the unit is victory. I have heard of doctors who fought the war instead of doing the opposite. Is there a bridge between those who kill and those who are supposed to heal? Are there compromises? Most of them compromise all the time and probably have to, and I have to, although I know . . . Yes, most and I, too, would rather not face any kind of conflict. Didn't I give in when the major . . . ?" "What?" I asked. "It is the easiest way to be on the side of the strong," he continued. "Those are the others, not we. So one tries to be like them. Why don't I have a horse? The lieutenant has one, and I hold the same rank, why shouldn't I have one, too, and shiny boots? . . . Incredible that I don't have the Iron Cross, Class I, instead of this idiotic Order of Merit. Only a few days ago I thought I would never bother my head about these things. Everything is clear, I am an army doctor, and that's that." "And now?" I asked. Helpless, he looked at me. "I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me I don't know anything any more. Wounded, dying, dead . . . Everything is different, nothing is clear and understandable any longer—but how does one find it?" "What?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. "Your handicap is your damned brain with too much imagination," I said, a little annoyed. Did he expect help from us? Yes. Otherwise he would not have talked about it. What did I know about him? I liked him, but that was about all. And sometimes I felt badly when I looked at him, and I felt sorry for him although I could not say why. But I could not even say whether he was a good or a bad doctor. He probably was a good one or would turn into a good one, but right now he seemed like a young man who was going through a prolonged adolescence. If one really did one's work, one had no time to think; one was too tired. Work, eat, sleep, no time for more. Problems? There was only one problem: how do I stanch the flow of blood? What do I do about the half-torn-off leg? Is the skull hurt or just the scalp? Where are the medics? And: how do I survive? That was all. And it was more than enough. But he: doctor or officer? My duties

were clear. No longer. How does one find it? What? What to do? Surely he racked his brains with problems about the "mystical origin" of our calling, perpetuated in us, modern doctors, despite white coats and modern operating rooms . . . The sick or wounded in putting their bodies, their health and their pains into a doctor's hands make a sacrifice: "Do what you think is right. . ." Otherwise, would he have asked how he could get people to do this willingly? Mystical origin, Hippocrates' oath, moral and ethical duties, nonsense, idiotic, windmills. No, no, not only to make money, that's right, be a good doctor, read medical papers once in a while, of course. Perhaps even discuss all this sometimes, but not here, for heaven's sake, not here! Privilege of youth, to question and be stupid. But also the duty to stay alive. Conflict with the military. He is in trouble with the major and with Sergeant Fink. Crazy. And a little self-complacently I thought that the men called me "our doctor" and that they liked me; one could tell. But Braun, wouldn't he always be strange and a little uncanny to them? I thought this and caught myself being a little envious: of his questions, doubts, of the questioning, dreamy look in his eyes, of his strong body, yes, even of the sign on his brow. "You should remember one thing," I said, and he started. My voice must have been sharper than I intended. "You are in the middle of this, and you shouldn't ask so many questions. But you will get over this in time. Follow the orders. And if this doesn't work any more, have a drink." "I'll try," he said, and seemed very far away.

II Sergeant Fink was traveling at the head of No. 2 Platoon. For the first time in his life he was in command of a company. He didn't mind that it was only temporary. He wasted no sympathy on his predecessors: Second Lieutenant Sonnecken and Lieutenant von Andres. In his opinion neither had really belonged to this battalion. Heaven knows why they had been posted to it. His command of the company need not be temporary for long. Ahead of him lay the bridge. He would take it and hold it, and he'd do it better than anyone else. Why look for another company commander when they already had one who was better than the others? As he sat there at the head of No. 2 Platoon, calm, motionless, with his moist, drooping lower lip and veiled eyes, he said to himself: "I'll show 'em! Damn it, I'll show 'em!" He didn't really know whom he meant by them. And he didn't really know what he wanted to show them, something that would make them open their mouths and say: What a man that sergeant is—taking the bridge, preventing the enemy from blowing it up, forming a bridgehead and holding it. . . . Something like that little matter of the four Russian tanks he had knocked out with his own hands on a single day—not with an antitank gun from a thousand or eight hundred yards' range, but with mines and adhesive charges at close quarters. He had waited there in his foxhole. Come, little brother, come nearer, there's nothing to be frightened of, don't be nervous, little brother, there now, come nearer still. That's it, that's fine, that's where we want you. Out of the hole, quick, apply the charge, set the fuse, back into the hole. Keep your head well down, boom! That's one little angel flown up to heaven, no, four little angels, red ones. The engine of the second tank stank of hot oil, the armor plate was hot, the

whole contraption was rickety. Quick, out of the hole, apply the charge, set the fuse, back into the hole again, boom! How many men could do a thing like that? The Russians climbed out, raised their arms, and said: "Nyet, Nyet!" and "Gospodin!" He gave them a few short, sharp bursts with his submachine gun, and that was that. Nobody came out of the third tank, how could they after you had dropped a hand grenade into the turret? About two hours later, toward evening, he had given the works to the fourth tank, and a little Russian had slipped out of the hatch like a piece of wet soap out of one's hand in the bath. He groveled on the ground and trembled like a girl one has laid on her back, saying: "No! No! No! Please!" What do you mean, no? It'll do you good to find out what a real man's like, not a conceited, puffed-up ape of an officer. Even the boy's face was like a girl's, only it was dirty and rather scratched and scorched, and he, Sergeant Fink, had said: "Don't be frightened, my little man, I won't do you any harm," and the Russian had said: "Thank you, comrade, thank you." How had the little Asiatic subman managed to learn German? He, Sergeant Fink, had said: "Don't worry, you're a nice little boy, it'll soon be over, it won't hurt a bit," and the little chap had just looked at him with his terrified eyes, so much the worse for him if he knew German, and he, Sergeant Fink, had said: "Are you one of the comrades who cut off German prisoners' ears and so on, you know what I mean? I'll show you, little brother." A short burst with the submachine gun, and that was the end of that. Four tanks in a day! How many men could do a thing like that? It had earned him the Iron Cross, Class I. One or two more little things, and the German Gold Cross. Valor in the face of the enemy. Four tanks in a day. How many men could do a thing like that? The major had said that he must postpone my promotion because I left the doctor behind in the red-brick building. Never mind. Now for the bridge. I'll show 'em. That damned swine of a doctor.

III Sergeant Fink Our surprise attack put the Russians into tremendous disarray. The tanks had a great moral effect. Far greater than the effect of their fire, which is always very inaccurate from a moving tank. Before we advanced on the bridge itself heavy fire from the tanks prevented the Russians from blowing it up. I assembled the company in a long deep hollow. I quickly reconnoitered weapon positions and put our men into them. It didn't look very promising, but I always am prepared for the worst, so I wasn't surprised. The wooden hut beside the bridge was on fire. I was afraid it might spread to the timber of the bridge. There was an enemy pillbox near the piles— it was quite easy to detect. I sent a runner to the nearest tank; it shelled the pillbox and silenced the enemy machine gun.

The Russians quickly recovered from their surprise. Heavy raking fire came from both flanks, but our cover was relatively good. The ground on either side of the bridge was flat and marshy, it was going to be a tough job. At this point the river was about a hundred and eighty feet wide, and the current was slow and sluggish. The bridge itself was about two hundred and fifty feet long. It was of solid steel construction, with a wooden causeway, and parts of it were filled in with timber. Just before we went in, heavy shell fire set in from across the river; the Russian gunners soon shot themselves in. I couldn't wait any longer; I mustn't let the men lose their nerve. You can always prod them, of course, but it isn't the same thing. They duck more than necessary. Suddenly I saw a flash on the bridge. For a moment I thought the Russians had managed to blow it up after all. One of the men said that it was all over, we might as well go back, it was too late to capture the bridge undamaged. I told him to keep his mouth shut. It turned out that one of our tanks had shot up a Russian ammunition truck; that always accounts for fireworks. Then we were ready. The point section moved off. The tanks changed position. This time there were no survivors. I worked forward to the edge of the bridge under covering fire of all weapons. I put in a flame thrower, which put out another machine gun. This one had been invisible, as it lay between the piles of the bridge. Then we cut the wires. The sleepers were on fire in places, but we couldn't help that. We dashed across the bridge as quickly as possible. I lost a few men in doing so, but fewer than I expected. One of them was Corporal Wagner, the medical orderly. I was told afterward that he was killed instantly. The smoke shells fired by the tanks helped us to get across. The advantage the smoke gave us outweighed the disadvantage of obscuring our men's targets. My company and the three tanks put up a terrific display of covering fire for us. I reached the other side of the bridge with twentyfive men. There was found a complete system of trenches, but they were only weakly defended. We occupied a part of them. Then I went over to the piles to cut the wires on that side too. I took with me Pfc. Buchholz, a good, keen, intelligent, levelheaded soldier. We soon found the wires and cut them. Now the bridge could no longer be blown up. We had good visibility all around from our little bridgehead. I fired a white and a green signal light. This was the signal for the rest of No. 1 and part of No. 2 Platoon to come up, as well as the ammunition carriers. Then I set about extending the bridgehead.

Pfc. Hildebrandt Fink led the mopping-up party that cleaned up the trenches on the other side of the bridge. I kept close to him. I always kept close to him—not because I liked him, everyone knows what I thought of him and what he thought of me. But I can't deny that he exercised a certain attraction over me; he had the fascination of a dangerous beast of prey. Strange and incredible though it may seem, one was always safest in his immediate neighborhood, which seemed to be covered by a kind of protective umbrella. Those close to him nearly always came through, at any rate in close combat; and what lay ahead of us now was close combat.

Every now and then I took a quick look at him. Though I had often seen him at work before—what he was doing now was merely work for him—I was always fascinated. His face was empty, lifeless. With his drooping lower lip, which he kept licking with the tip of his tongue, he looked like an idiot. Once in a while he threw a hand grenade or fired a few bursts with his submachine gun. Behind him were his two assistants or acolytes or whatever the right term is, who passed him hand grenades or full magazines whenever he needed them or threw grenades and fired themselves when it was necessary. And I followed on their heels. We reached the second main trench. Fink turned to the right. We followed. "Covering party!" he called out and lost interest in what happened behind him. His men knew what to do. I had no intention of turning to the left. I dragged up hand grenades, passed them on, and kept my eyes on every-think that was going on, with him as the center of it all. When he was engaged on a job like this, there was no stopping him. On and on he went, like an automaton, he couldn't help it. His head was as empty as his eyes and face, he had no thoughts, no memories, no hopes, no future. He existed only in the present. A machine, a killing machine. He just used his reflexes, he never had to think what to do, he just did it, and did it instinctively, never making a mistake. What a soldier! He showed none of the battle frenzy of Corporal Rauch or Corporal Locher, who were doing the same job as he at the other end of the trench system. There was no trace in him of their frenzy of fear, rage, terror, fury, and the thrill of being stronger than their fear. Fink was not like that. He felt no fear, no frenzy, no fury, no thrill; when he killed he remained himself: empty and cold. We mopped up the Russian trenches. Casually, barely looking at them, in the completely detached fashion in which he did everything, Fink shot two Russians who were crouching in the trench with raised arms, looking at him imploringly, fear and defiance in their eyes. He used two rounds on each of them, and the only feeling he was capable of was the annoyance he might have felt if he had had to expend five. We stepped over the bodies and went on to the end of the trench. Then Fink sent Drexler and me to a machine-gun pit on the embankment above the bridge, and I stayed there until the end of the battle; it was like a front-row seat, from which I saw every detail of how Dr. Braun crossed the river.

Sergeant Fink Only Corporal Stockel and his section and an ammunition party managed to get across the bridge to us. The others couldn't manage it, because the enemy fire had grown too heavy. Just an excuse, of course. The Russian fire was heavy, heavier than it had been half an hour before when I got across, but if I'd been there I should have got them across. They'd have run as if the devil was at their heels. I couldn't do a thing. Should I fetch them? But what would the men do here? I was still thinking it over when the bridge caught fire in several places. The flames spread quickly; the Russians had probably fired phosphorus shells. Now nobody could get across. The

fire didn't matter too much. What mattered was that the metal structure and the piles were still intact. Stockel said we were cut off. Nobody could get through. At first I didn't believe him. Out of fear people nearly always exaggerate and tell you a lot of things that aren't true, but I soon saw we were really cut off. No reinforcements would be coming up, and of course no ammunition. For a while we had enough. I sent two men back to the emplacement at our end of the bridge. It wasn't damaged, and they were to occupy it and use the enemy machine gun, for which there was plenty of ammunition. I also sent three men to collect enemy weapons and ammunition. They found several boxes of hand grenades and ammunition in an enemy dugout. One of the men was picked off by an enemy sniper. Hit in the head. I sent round a warning about snipers, who gave us a lot of trouble. The enemy mortars were registering well on our position, and soon their artillery joined in. At first I thought it strange that they avoided firing at the bridge; apart from the few phosphorus shells, it wasn't hit once. Then I realized that the Russians must be thinking they would drive us out. They didn't want to destroy the bridge. Fine, let the devil come for us, we'll give him a warm reception. A few more or less won't make much difference. But then I said to myself that the major was bound to come up with the rest of the battalion and get us out. And behind him the whole division. I was the spearhead. I had carried out my orders, and I would hold this bridge if all the devils in hell came for us. Soon I lost another man, picked off by snipers. I got one of the snipers myself, but it was the old story, if you pick off one sniper, two more appear in his place. I had quite a lot of wounded. Some of them could still shoot or carry ammunition. All the men behaved very well. I decided to send for the doctor. The wounded needed him. How he got across the river was his business.

The Doctor The men had their hands full driving off the Russians who came swarming across the marsh to attack the flanks of the little bridgehead on this side of the river. No doubt about it, we were cut off; and our bridgehead and the other little bridgehead across the river and the burning bridge between formed an island in an enemy sea. I don't know what happened behind us. For a time we refused to believe we were surrounded, but when Corporal Abend arrived with his two men our fears were confirmed. Contact with battalion had been broken; he had seen with his own eyes Russian tanks and infantry breaking through our weakly defended flanks and forming a strong barrier between us and the units behind us. The Russians had driven him, Corporal Abend, out of the station with their left hand, so to speak. Their superiority in numbers was overwhelming, and he had lost nearly all his men. I had set up my first-aid post in a deep hollow roughly in the middle of the bridgehead. Casualties were continually coming in; Puhlmann and I had our hands full. We had no idea when it would be possible to send them back, and they had to spend hour after hour exposed to the scorching sun. We hung ground sheets on sticks to provide a bit of shade, but that provided only

a minimum of relief. In that almost circular hollow we were scorched as in a frying pan, and every now and then I climbed up to the edge to get a little fresh air. I did everything for the wounded that I possibly could. It was possible to deal properly only with the lighter cases, but with Puhlmann's help I carried out two amputations with local anesthetics. Puhlmann was magnificent. In spite of his slightly built frame he performed the most extraordinary feats of strength. He limped across ground exposed to Russian fire, dragging his clubfoot behind him, and dragged in the wounded; and he did it all with a quiet, relaxed, matterof-factness that I had not seen in him before. It was good to have him there. His coolness made my own fear easier to bear; I imitated him, trying not to show it. Later I wondered whether I had made a fool of myself in front of him. Had I not always felt myself to be the stronger, the superior? Even when the bridge caught fire and we lost contact with Sergeant Fink on the other side of the river, our people did not lose heart. But I could see no way out. We would never get out of this hollow alive. That was what I thought, what I believed, yet deep inside me I knew that it would not be the end of me. It seemed incredible that I should ever resemble the bullet-torn bodies lying all around me, the mutilated limbs, the smashed-in heads, the dead eyes, the lusterless teeth in the gaping mouths. We were all brothers in our fear and our efforts to inspire ourselves and each other with courage. And I took refuge in my responsibility and in my work as a doctor, which had nothing to do with what the troops were doing; so I ought to be spared their fate. And we all had the major. He'll come. He'll get us out, he was bound to. As he always had in the past. There was a sudden shout: "Doctor! Doctor!" I looked up. Corporal Abend ran down the side of the hollow. He was panting, his face was scratched and filthy. In one hand he held a submachine gun, in the other a Russian hand grenade. "Didn't you see?" he said. "No," I said. "What?" At that moment a shell exploded at the edge of the hollow and spattered us with earth. We crouched, and the corporal said: "Puhlmann has got to change position. It's getting uncomfortable here. There's a good place over by the embankment." "Why Puhlmann?" "Fink has sent for you, you've got to go across." "Nonsense! How could Fink send for him?" Puhlmann exclaimed. "Haven't you ever heard of signal lights?" said the corporal, on the point of going away. "Didn't you see them? You've got to go across, doctor." "How can he get across, you bastard. The bridge is on fire!" "Shut up!" said the corporal. "The sergeant has sent for him, and that's that." "How can he get across?" said Puhlmann. "Have you all gone crazy?" "I haven't," said the corporal. "Swim. You can swim, doctor, can't you?"

"Nonsense," Puhlmann said calmly and contemptuously, as if he could not believe his ears. But I believed mine. "Well, doctor, I've given you the message," the corporal said sympathetically. Then he went, and Puhlmann said: "They're mad. You can't swim across, sir, it's impossible." "Why not?" I said. "The water's sure to be warm." Puhlmann "Why not? The water's sure to be warm," said Dr. Braun, shrugging his shoulders. But I saw what he was feeling; he wasn't the first to try to get the better of his fear by bluffing. He knew as well as I did that he had no chance of getting across. First he had to cross a stretch of open ground, then go down the bank, then swim across, then get up the bank on the other side, and that was as good as impossible. And Fink must have known it. Or was that the reason why he sent for him? He was perfectly capable of it. He was within his rights in sending for a medical orderly or a doctor if he needed one. But an old fox like him also knew that this couldn't end well. "A cool bath at this time of year will do me good. I can do with one," said the doctor, but his voice was hoarse and he avoided looking at me. "Pack my bag. No, I'll do it. Stay here and do what you can." Men are brave because they can't afford to lose face. "Nobody likes losing face, and the doctor didn't want to look like a coward in front of the others, or even in front of me. Nobody wants to be a coward. When I come to think of it, that's only because we're all of us the most pitiful cowards. "Shall I come with you?" I said, knowing perfectly well what the answer would be. "No, certainly not," he said, poking about in his bag as if to make sure everything was there. He took out a syringe and put it back again, rearranged the vials, took out the bandages, put them back, and eventually said: "I think I'd better take some more." I made a parcel of some more, wrapped his bag and the parcel in a ground sheet, then put another ground sheet around it, to keep it as dry as possible. "It may float," I said. "Then you'll only have to push it in front of you. There's hardly any current, it won't take you downstream." At last we were ready, and before he went he said, still without looking at me properly: "One does what one can, doesn't one?" "Good luck, sir," I said. I felt sorry for him, I liked him, and I felt sure that what I had foreseen was going to happen.

IV At such moments a veil comes down over one's mind. It does not diminish the sense of danger, but makes it more remote, more impersonal. When the doctor started running over the flat, marshy ground, he emerged from his body, escorted it, and observed it with a touch of curiosity. How would it behave? He feared for it, he was terrified that something would happen to it, he concentrated his whole being on getting it through safe and sound, but it had ceased to be his master and had become his servant. In spite

of all his concentration on his body and what he was doing with it, his mind nevertheless made strange excursions into the past and the future and noted all sorts of irrelevant details that he met with on the way. He rushed forward, flung himself down, jumped up, made another rush, stumbled, fell, jumped up, rushed forward, flung himself down. He considered carefully whether or not he should take off his boots when he got to the bank, and how he was to do it without the aid of an orderly or Puhlmann. And how was he to get them across the river? Should be leave them on the bank and fetch them later? He jumped over a dead Russian lying in the thick grass, and as he did so he noticed all the details of the fatal wound, the blood, the gaping thorax, the exposed organs; he noticed the wart on the man's left cheek and the frayed sleeves of his brown uniform, and thought: Pneumothorax as a consequence of sudden opening of the thorax; he must have felt a blow and that was all. Another dead Russian lay on his belly, with his head half blown off; the brown hair on what was left moved in the breeze. Then a German, with one leg at an impossible angle parallel to his body, the toe of his boot nearly touching his cheek. His dead eyes were wide open, there were flies on them, and there was a gold filling on one tooth in his gaping mouth. He noted almost with curiosity three or four fountains of earth that rose in front of him. Lumps of earth and turf flew past him. Idiots—to the last man-jack of them, he thought. A stretch of marshy ground. His boots sank in the soft mud, the grass was tall and sharp and hard. When I was a boy I often cut myself on this kind of grass. He made a sharp detour round the erect arm of a corpse lying invisible in the grass, then he was on hard ground again, and wondered whether he had enough antitetanus serum with him. A voice behind him shouted something, he knew it was meant for him, though he couldn't catch it. Never mind, he must go on. Suddenly he found himself lying flat on his face, and he noticed the smell of the cool grass, he thought he could taste it in addition to the taste of blood in his mouth. Have I been hit? No, it's only from running. His eyes fell on a yellow flower on a thin stalk in front of him. The stalk bent when a bumblebee settled on it. The bumblebee was fat, round, almost black; its buzzing seemed louder than the battle, louder than his own breathing and his rapid heartbeats. He stretched out his hand and touched the stalk, and the bumblebee flew away with an angry buzz. He watched it, stood up, and ran after it, but it curved away to the left and disappeared, and he went on. There's the river, another hundred yards, no, two hundred. He jumped over a shell hole filled nearly to the top with blackish water on which dead grass was floating. Something touched his sleeve, he took no notice, he thought he was going to collapse from exhaustion, but he ran on, heard himself sobbing, heard himself saying "Oh God, oh God," ran on, and did not fling himself to the ground again for fear he would not be able to get up. He ran past a burning tank, the fire crackling merrily, a dirty red star on the turret, it stank of hot metal and rubber (wasn't there also a stink of burning flesh?). Past a bush with three dead men behind it, no, four, one of them feebly raised his arm, then dropped it again. On, on, here was the river. He jumped, landed halfway down the steep bank, slid the rest of the way, ended up in a sitting position, green, sluggish water in front of him. The sun shone on the water, there were eddies here and there, a floating log, a half-submerged body with its legs in the water, on the left was the burning bridge, the smoke gave him a long fit of coughing, his lungs and his whole chest hurt, the bloated body in the water beside him stank, the water stank, the log floated

away, the package that Puhlmann had tied up for him, the burning bridge, a row of little spurts approached him across the water, small-arms fire and the whistle of bullets—pyoo, pyoo, pyoo—two big fountains of water and two crashing detonations, dead fish floating to the surface, a ricochet, carry on, shouting behind him, what has it to do with me? Sergeant Fink over on the opposite bank, a small form, waving, yes, I'm just coming, I'm just coming. The man disappeared again. He took off his boots.

Pfc. Hildebrandt Drexler and I crouched in our hole overlooking the embankment, Drexler at the machine gun and I with the ammunition boxes. Ever since the red-brick building we had been on top of each other, and I could not get rid of him; I think he was just as sick of me as I was of him. Somehow we could never shake each other off. That may not have been really true; perhaps we were attracted to each other like magnets because of what we had been through together, and because, apart from Fink, we were the only survivors. Well, there we were, crouched in our hole, when the doctor suddenly appeared over the embankment and slid down to the water. He was the only moving thing in sight, apart from the fountains of earth thrown up by bursting shells and the occasional fountains of water that leaped up as suddenly as the explosions which caused them, tried to maintain themselves for a moment, quickly grew tired and collapsed. He was the only human form in sight that moved of its own accord; the others were the dead bodies that came floating downstream. We had been able to follow him nearly all the way down to the river, running with a big package under his arm, disappearing and reappearing, a small running figure, seeming to move very slowly until he jumped down the embankment and sat at the water's edge, looking very solitary and forlorn. What the devil was he doing here? I wondered. He seemed not to fit in, but it was good to see him all the same. It was a relief to me and, I think, to Drexler and everybody else, too, for he was a stranger among us, and a strange, fleeting idea passed through my mind, as fleeting as touching a girl whom one loves but doesn't dare to tell, and I made up my mind to mention it to him if I had an opportunity and he came through. For a time he sat motionless on the bank. Once he was completely concealed by an enormous fountain of water that was bigger and taller than the rest and took longer to get tired and subside, and I thought he had had it. But there he was, sitting motionless as before, alone, nothing else in sight, and he didn't move even when a Russian machine gun sent a burst over the water in his direction. But the burst ended, and the spurts on the water stopped before they reached him. "Come on! Come on!" Drexler shouted impatiently, as if the doctor could hear. "Why the hell doesn't he come on?" he said to me. "Why the hell doesn't he come on?" He was such an easy target that I was surprised he was not picked off by a sniper. Perhaps he was in dead ground, or they hadn't spotted him. Perhaps the machine gun had jammed just when the burst was about to reach him; perhaps when the gunner had cleared it he couldn't see him any longer, any more than the snipers and the other machine gunners and everybody else could. What other explanation could there be? He was a sitting target, any ordinary rifleman could pick him off, if not with the first shot, at any rate with his second.

"Why doesn't he come on?" Drexler repeated, and started waving, but the doctor didn't move. "Perhaps he's dead," I said. "We must make him get a move on," said Drexler. "Jump out and do it yourself," I said. "You do it," Drexler said. He was quite right, I should have done it, he was No. 1 on the gun, and he could give me orders. But I had no intention of standing on the parapet and waving and getting shot for my pains. "Not I," I said. Drexler gave me a murderous look which left me completely unaffected. He jumped out of the hole and started shouting and waving, and the small form on the opposite bank raised its hand and dropped it again. Drexler jumped back into the hole and said: "Perhaps he's wounded." "Quite likely." "Perhaps he can't come on." "Quite likely," I said. He was getting on my nerves. But the doctor wasn't wounded. He started taking off his boots, had some difficulty with them, had to tug, and when at last he had got them off he took a packet of bandages from his pocket, opened it with his teeth, tied his boots together, and hung them round his neck. "He's off his head," I said. "I wish I had his coolness," Drexler said admiringly. It was really extraordinary. There the doctor sat, in broad daylight, a wonderful target, and he must have known it. But he showed no sign of hurry. I've seen a great deal of action, but only once or twice have I seen anything like that, and I couldn't understand what was the matter with the man. No one in his right mind could possibly have behaved like that. He got up slowly, with his boots round his neck and his package under his arm, and walked a few paces along the water's edge, as if he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and the bodies. Then he walked into the water, and if he had not been in uniform, if he had not had his boots round his neck and the package under his arm, he would have looked just like an ordinary civilian in peacetime going in for a dip, slightly afraid of the cold water but determined to have his dip all the same. "God, what a man!" exclaimed Drexler, slapping the breech of the machine gun. "God, what a man! Have you ever seen anything like it?" The water quickly got deeper, and soon the doctor was in up to his chest. He began to swim, pushing his package in front of him. The current took him slowly down toward the bridge; and, when he was a third of the way across, I realized that he had worked it out carefully so he'd land right under the piles. When he was about halfway across the Russians suddenly woke up and started firing like mad at the package in the water and the head behind it. There were spurts and splashes all round him, but he kept steadily on, and Drexler started firing like mad, apparently to give him covering fire, and so did the others, but it didn't make much difference. A fountain of water, he reached the level of the second pile, then another fountain of water. That's got him, I said to myself, but no, there was his head and the package in front of him, which now lay much deeper in the water. The whole front seemed to be concentrating on this one man, one side trying to kill him, and the other to protect him. Drexler kept on firing and shouted:

"Faster, doctor! Faster! Faster!" I heard others shouting too, shouting to him to hurry, like spectators at a marathon race shouting to an exhausted runner who has just turned into the stadium and has another hundred yards to go. He kept on swimming, and suddenly I knew for certain that he would come through, that no power on earth could stop him. His head reached the bank, he was in dead ground, the Russians stopped firing. His body and chest rose out of the water, he waded to the bank, climbed over the big stones with his package under his arm, and disappeared over the top of the steep bank. "Have you ever seen anything like it?" Drexler exclaimed, slapping me on the back. Then we changed the hot barrel of the gun and went on with the war, which now became quite impersonal again, as it generally was. Sergeant Fink The doctor reported to me at about 1600 hours. He was wet through and looked very exhausted. He had his boots tied round his neck, and I asked him whether he was thinking of playing soldier in his socks. He muttered something about having forgotten to put them on again, and I told him he had taken his time getting here. Two of our men had died for lack of medical attention. The medical orderly had been killed right at the beginning. "I didn't know," he said. I pointed out that I was responsible for a whole company and he was responsible only for two wretched medical orderlies, and yet I knew more about his people than he did. What had he to say to that? He didn't answer, and I told him it was high time he got to work. "But first put your boots on," I told him. "Have you ever heard of a Prussian soldier on duty in his socks?" Actually I was surprised that he had managed to get across, but I had more important matters on my mind, so I wasted no further thought on him. The situation was getting more and more serious. Soon afterward three Stukas turned up and gave us a breathing space. They dropped their bombs among the enemy infantry, who had returned to the attack. A little later they also shot up three of five enemy tanks that advanced toward us from the small wood on our right front. The two others hastily withdrew. This was good for the men's morale, because we shouldn't have been able to do very much against tanks. On the whole, the men behaved very well, though as time went on fewer and fewer of them were left. Toward evening we lost two machine guns one after the other, but we managed to throw back another infantry attack, partly in close combat. The area on our immediate front was littered with corpses, a lot of wounded were crawling about yelling for stretcher-bearers. I started getting worried about the ammunition. I gave orders that fire was to be opened only when a good target presented itself. By this time most of the men were using Russian weapons and throwing Russian hand grenades. I had no idea what the situation was like on the other side of the river. All I could tell from the noise of battle was that my men were still holding out there. I couldn't understand why the major didn't come to help us out. He had told us that the general had promised him every support. But that's the way it usually is with the brass —plenty of promises and very little performance. We wallow in the mud and pick their chestnuts out of the

fire while they drive round grandly like a lot of overdressed monkeys, and we sleep on dirty straw or the bare earth while they roll about with their women between clean sheets. Just before dark the Russians attacked again. We had a hard job driving them off, but we managed it. Afterward I started making a round of the trenches to see how many of us were left. When I was crossing some fiat ground under Russian observation on the way to the foxhole where Drexler and Hildebrandt were, I was hit.

Pfc. Hildebrandt When I think of what happened to that swine Fink I begin to have doubts about the existence of chance. I remember an extremely learned treatise on chance that I read very earnestly at the university. A lot of twaddle. I couldn't possibly have thought of a better punishment for Fink, and I spent quite a lot of time thinking about the subject. Somewhere or other there's a being, with a beard or without a beard, you can call him what you like, God or providence or Buddha or the devil or anything else you choose. Sometimes he suddenly wakes up, rapidly sums up the situation, and gives instructions to his subordinates, of whom chance is one. And that is how it came about that on that summer afternoon, July 9 or 10, or whenever it was, chance went into action and brought the doctor safe and sound across the river and on the same evening caused a shell to burst that deprived Sergeant Fink of his genitals. Horrible, of course, but where else would he get hit? In the head? That is where I'd get hit, but not Fink. Didn't that boy who was a running champion get hit in the leg and have to have it amputated? Why should Fink get hit in the head? A man who lives by his head needs his genitals only occasionally, even if only to get rid of the nuisance and be able to think more clearly afterward. But Fink lived by his genitals and through them. After the last Russian attack—behind the veil of smoke and dust the sun was like a great, gleaming, oversize orange —Fink started out on his obligatory round of the trenches. He cannot have found what he saw very cheering, and he was in one of his usual rages. His face was like clay, dead and expressionless, and reminded me a bit of a picture I once saw in an illustrated paper of Joe Louis's face between rounds. To get to us he had to cross some exposed ground. He didn't hurry, he just tramped toward us, bending forward slightly, looking like an untamed giant, or a uniformed block of granite in human form, raising a small cloud of dust with every step. He was being fired at, and knew it, but he didn't hasten his stride. He approached us like fate, inexorable and invulnerable. "Oh, God, there he is!" said Drexler. "I pray that devil will go to hell!" Was it that that did it? I'm slowly beginning to believe things that in the old days I should merely have laughed at —if, indeed, I had wasted a thought on them at all. Suddenly Fink stopped dead, as if he had run into a stone wall, staggered backward, and doubled up. There was a look of astonishment on his face, and he held his hands to his body like a woman trying to hide her nakedness. Then he looked down and took his hands away as if afraid of what he was going to see. He was covered with blood, he looked, and suddenly collapsed like a felled tree and started to yell. He writhed and thrashed around, half rose, collapsed again like a great shapeless fish, yelling as

I have never heard anyone yell in my life. It seemed to silence the whole front, it shook one to the marrow. Oh God, how he yelled; he yelled so dreadfully that I felt sorry for him. Drexler jumped out of the hole and crawled over to him, and Fink's arm almost casually swept him aside, though Drexler was a powerful man. The shrieking was too much for me, I couldn't stand it, it was worse than the danger, so I went over, too. The pair of us were unable to quiet him. I got a stunning blow on the forehead, my glasses flew off, and without them I'm practically helpless. I let Fink go, tried to find them, but couldn't, though I looked and looked for them. I stopped worrying about Fink until the others came and eventually overpowered him and took him to the trenches. I went on groping for my glasses, I could have wept with rage, what was I to do without them? Then I found a piece of metal and a broken lens. Meanwhile Fink yelled, and I yelled too. I yelled at the men who were holding him and told them to gag him, otherwise it would drive everybody mad. What was I to do without my glasses? I had lost my gas-mask pair, and had left my reserve pair with my kit in the rear. I could have kicked myself. I crawled over to the others and found the doctor busy giving him a shot; that is to say, I couldn't see him, but I heard his voice. "Hold him tight! For God's sake, hold him tight!" he said. "For God's sake, shut up!" somebody shouted at Fink. But he went on yelling, and then the doctor said: "Well, that's that. He'll soon be quiet now." "Poor devil," I heard Drexler's voice say. "He's lost his whole bag of tricks." The Doctor The wound looked appalling. I gave him a double dose of morphine. Novocain. I broke open a vial, filled the syringe, and injected. Then I started treating the wound without waiting for the injection to work. First I had to find the torn artery and stop the flow of blood. There was no one to help me. I had to do everything myself with dirty hands, and with insufficient and dirty instruments. This strange operation took a long time in the fading evening light. I found the artery and tied it. I had my bag on the ground next to me, and I had to search in it for what I needed with bloodstained hands. I extended the big wound -in the lower abdomen and thigh, removed the loose flesh and skin, and covered the wound with iodoform gauze. It went on bleeding. All the men went back to their posts, except Hildebrandt, who remained crouching in a corner of the trench, blinking helplessly without his glasses. "That swine smashed them," he said for the third or fourth time, and I told him to shut up, he had told me that already, there was nothing I could do about it, anyway, not now. Could I conjure a new pair out of the earth for him? After a short pause he started again. "Without my glasses I can't.. ." "Doctor," he said some time afterward. "What is it?" "I'd love to help you. But without glasses I can't." "Then stay where you are." "I'd even gladly help you with that swine." "Shut up."

A few moments later he started again. "Doctor!" I didn't answer. "Do you enjoy the role of good Samaritan, doctor?" His voice sounded evil and mocking. "You think a lot of yourself, don't you, doctor?" "Keep your mouth shut," I shouted at him, but he took no notice. "You're just as self-righteous a humbug as the priests who preach peace and bless soldiers going to the war," he said, quietly and distinctly, emphasizing every word. "Do you realize that?" Then after a pause he went on: "Let Fink die like a dog! What is he good for without his balls? He's not a man any longer." "I order you to keep your mouth shut," I said, losing my temper. "And I don't give a damn for your orders," he said mockingly. "Order me about as much as you like, it doesn't work any longer, you revolting, self-righteous sawbones, it just doesn't work any longer. Can't you see that, or are you blind?" His voice had become high and hysterical. He paused for a moment or two, then went on again, softly but distinctly, and, when I glanced at him, I caught his gleaming, mocking, intelligent, inquisitive eyes. "Take a man wounded in the arm, for instance," he said. "His arm has been shot to pieces with a maximum of scientific precision, and you put the same maximum of scientific precision into mending it again. Do you follow me, sawbones?" I didn't answer. "You do your best to help him, but in reality you're doing the reverse. The better you do your work, the sooner he's sent back to be wounded again—or perhaps killed. You'd help him far more if you crippled his arm for good or put something in it to prevent it from healing until the war was over. . . . Do you follow me, sawbones?" I didn't answer. "I assume you do follow me. By helping him all you do is help prolong the war. Listen to me, sawbones. If the priests withheld their blessing, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the war; everybody would go on fighting just the same. But the belly's nearer than the soul. A bad conscience is easier to bear than a bullet in the belly. In any case . . ." He fell silent, and Sergeant Fink opened his eyes. They were glassy, and looked at me without seeing. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but closed it again and ground his teeth. I put layer after layer of bandage on the wound, and the gauze was soaked with blood immediately. I was concentrating on the wound, simultaneously paying attention to what was going on outside (an unnatural quiet lay over the front). I was also involuntarily listening to Hildebrandt, whose words dropped quietly and calmly into the ominous silence by which we were surrounded like water dripping from a broken pipe. I found myself strangely fascinated and repelled by what he said, and I heard myself involuntarily saying: "Well, get it off your chest, man. Don't mind me!" "What else is there to say?" Hildebrandt said wearily. "Can't you draw your own conclusions?" "Well, what conclusions?" "You doctors ought to go on strike, all of you, on both sides. Nobody could go on fighting without the knowledge at the back of his mind that there was someone there to come to his assis-

tance if he was hit. Do you follow me? No one would go on fighting if he knew for certain that if he were hit he would die. It is only in war that the presence of aid and assistance has such tremendous and far-reaching consequences. If you refused to provide it, war would stifle of its own horror." Footsteps approached, a voice said: "Is he spinning his cobwebs again, doctor?" "Who?" 'The professor." I looked up. It was Drexler. "Of course he is," said Hildebrandt. "At least he admits it," said Drexler. "How's the sergeant?" "He must be sent back immediately," I said. "Poor devil! Come along, professor, I need you." "I can't without my glasses." Hildebrandt's voice was high, hysterical, and tearful again. "You don't need glasses for what you've got to do now. Come along, man!" "I can't, I can't . . ." Hildebrandt yelled. Drexler took him by the arm, pulled him to his feet, and pushed him along the trench.

Before the last light faded Major Fechter and Lieutenant Colonel Hecht's tanks, with the assistance of some assault guns from an SS detachment, succeeded in breaking through and relieving us. Sergeant Fink was taken back with the other wounded. When we put him in the ambulance he opened his eyes and said: "What have you done to me, doctor?" His voice was cold, calm, and impersonal again, it was difficult to believe that he was the man who had been yelling so dreadfully not long before. "For you the war's over for the time being," I said, using the usual evasion when we don't want to tell the truth. My hatred of him had vanished, as well as the strange, inexplicable fear of him that I had previously felt. "What have you done to me?" he repeated, and he spoke as if he held me entirely responsible for what had happened to him. He didn't want to know about the shell that had wounded him, or about the Russians; all that he cared about was what I had done to him while he lay there helpless and unable to defend himself. "I only bandaged you up," I said more sharply than I intended. "Now you're going to a hospital, and they'll see about you there." He looked at me, and it was obvious that he didn't believe me. I sighed with relief when the ambulance drove away. I thought that I should never see him again. I was wrong.

The General . . . During the weeks preceding the offensive the division •was brought up to full strength and weapons and equipment were brought up to complement down to the most minor details. When the division was committed to the assault of the enemy bridgehead on the Voroga on both sides of Pushkarnoye its strength, with that of attached units (No, 612 Tank Battalion, equipped with Panthers, No. 2/167 SS Assault Gun Troop, and the army motorized assault battalion), was 15,638 officers and other ranks, of whom 13,874 were employed in combatant duties, 1,143 in the supply services and 621 in the first-line reinforcement battalion. Officers numbered 447, N.C.O.'s 2,673, privates 12,452 and military officials 66. The division largely reached its objectives (see attached report of engagement). In the subsequent severe defensive fighting against the numerically superior enemy the division had to accept heavy losses. Particularly regrettable was the loss of the divisional commander, Major General Ritter von Spaeth, who was severely wounded on July 28, 1943, while personally leading a counterattack against enemy infantry and tanks. (Extract from war diary of the 93rd Grenadier Division)

I Captain Surkamp, the battalion medical officer, was killed on the day after the capture of the railway bridge. The battalion suffered heavy losses. These included nearly the whole of No. 1 Company, and in the course of vain attempts to break through the Russian ring and relieve the assault party more than half of Major Fechter's shock platoon, which consisted exclusively of officer cadets, was wiped out. No. 2 (Heavy) Company lost nearly a third of its strength. Late on the evening after the battle for the bridge the battalion was withdrawn to the quarters it had occupied before it began. During the night it rained—soft, gentle, persistent rain— and the sound of it reached Dr. Braun as he lay in his room. The front was quiet, as if the rain had laid a gentle hand on it; the fighting was now far away on the other side of the river, and there was a smell of damp, fertile earth and wet grass and leaves; quiet, restfulness, oblivion. The doctor slept deeply and dreamlessly until Puhlmann's voice reached him, telling him that it was time to get up. The morning was warm, gray, and overcast. The earth steamed. Men were jumping naked round the water pump, splashing each other with buckets and mess tins full of water, there was laughter and cheerful swearing. Lathered faces, concentrated on their shaving, peered into small mirrors suspended from the branches of trees or propped on window sills or on the stack of timber by the barn. A voice was quietly telling funny stories. As the doctor passed he heard it saying: "Then she said: 'No, Moritz, not like that, like this,'" followed by loud and happy laughter.

The shades of the dead had vanished, the shrieks of the wounded had ceased; there was no place for them now: this morning belonged to life. The doctor emptied a bucket of ice-cold water over his head and laughed and shook himself with pleasure; the cold water cut into his skin, made his heart miss a beat and then made it race. Dimly and distantly he remembered the green, sluggish water through which he had swum yesterday, the dead body lying half submerged in the water, how his uniform had remained damp and clammy until late into the night. He called Puhlmann and told him to empty two or three more buckets of water over his head, the more the better, no, still more, and Puhlmann asked whether he should scrub his back. "Yes, do," he said, "that's fine, Puhlmann." His skin tingled, and he began to sing, and later when he shaved he sang again. "Doctor, you missed your vocation," said a soldier; he was naked, his face, neck and arms were deeply tanned, his body was white and long, and strong muscles rippled under his skin. "You mean I should have been an opera singer?" the doctor said, and the man laughed and his teeth gleamed white in the lather on his face. "Yes," the man said, carefully shaving his neck. "People would pay you to stop." "Cheek," said the doctor. "It's powerful, God knows," said another man, looking respectfully at the doctor's physique. "His chest's big enough." "Yes," said a third man. "Straight from the zoo. I once saw a monkey who was just as hairy." "It's very nice at the zoo," said the doctor. "Did they throw you lots of nuts and bananas, doctor?" "Would you like my razor to shave it off?" "Don't do that; the girls like it, don't they, doctor? Scratch, scratch, scratch, what a lovely fur you've got, doctor darling!" "Iiiih . . . girls!" another man said, with a neighing giggle. "Round and smooth in front, just like a baby's bottom." "Shut up, you fool!" "Iiiih . . . girls!" "Soft and round and smooth. ... I knew one who had enough for six babies' bottoms in front, and she had hair only on her toes. . . ." "You shut up!" "Now a girl—I'd go mad!" "How would it suit you, doctor?" "Scratch, scratch, scratch," the doctor said. "Oh, doctor darling, come and examine my ana . . . ana . . . What's the word, doctor?" "Autonomy," said Dr. Braun. "Idiots!" said Puhlmann. The doctor began to sing again. Puhlmann fetched more water from the pump and poured it over his back, he shook himself, and the sound of loud, high-pitched laughter came from the barn. Then he dressed and had breakfast, and the sun came out.

"I couldn't sleep," said Captain Surkamp, when Dr. Braun joined him on the seat in the front garden. "I've been taking too much of the stuff, just to keep awake, and now when I wanted to go to sleep I couldn't." The "stuff" he referred to was pervitin, which he took regularly, and not only to keep awake. His eyes were red, and his face was gray and tired. He sat with bent shoulders and his hands dangled between his knees, and Braun felt slightly guilty at feeling so well. "Don't get used to the stuff," said Surkamp. "It has done for quite a lot of us." "For the time being I'm getting along without," said Braun. "Huh! A mere beginner!" exclaimed Captain Surkamp. "A mere novice, a beginner, still with his milk teeth, still wet behind the ears, still in his swaddling clothes. Of course you can still get along without!" They laughed. "Tell me about Fink," said Surkamp. "Lost everything. He's in a bad way." "And to think it should happen to him of all people." "Now he's a eunuch." "I hear he's been proposed for the Knight's Cross," said Surkamp. "Bet that he'll get it?" "Because of the bridge?" "Yes." "I'd rather not be a eunuch and not have the KnightT' Cross," said Braun. "I'm afraid there's rather more to it than you realize. They say he once had five girls one after the other in a Polish brothel. One of them was crazy about him. He didn't have to pay her—let him have it for nothing. She said he was a man in a million. She neglected her work and hung outside his barracks waiting for him and didn't mind how much he went with the other girls provided he went with her." "A greathearted, selfless, loving whore," said Braun. "Or one who liked it.." "Five, one after the other, not bad!" "There was one in the same town who was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." "A whore?" "Yes, but a high-class one. Available only to majors and upward. I never got anywhere near her. Really lovely. One day she vanished, and two weeks later her body was found in a pond. She looked less beautiful then." "Was she murdered?" "Yes. A second lieutenant fell in love with her and strangled her. She was the loveliest woman and the biggest bitch I've ever come across in my life. And the young man might have walked straight out of a picture book. Tall, fair, good-looking, and from an old family." Lieutenant von Andres flashed through Braun's mind; he had a glimpse of him lying on the ground with only the stump of an arm, suffering from shock, much too much dirt, flock of sheep ... He made an effort to dismiss the memory, and said: "Well, what happened?" "He went about moonstruck, bought her jewels and things, just like a Dostoevski novel—have you read any Dostoevski?"

"Only The Idiot." "This was more like The Gambler. He was the only second lieutenant who ever had anything to do with her, so far as I know, and it certainly cost him a fortune. Then he said he wanted to marry her. You should have seen him glowing with happiness. He went to see her again, and heaven knows what happened; he strangled her and threw her in the pond. He was arrested and admitted everything. Presumably he was sent to a punishment battalion. He was an excellent soldier I saw him while he was under arrest. He was unrecognizable." "That's a good story," said Braun. "I've got a lot of other stories," said Surkamp. "For a time I had to go once a week to two brothels, to examine the girls. In one of them there were two sisters, Jewesses. They were handsome creatures, the soldiers were crazy about them, and then somebody tipped somebody else off, jealousy, I suppose, and they were taken away." "Where?" Surkamp shrugged his shoulders. "Dachau? Auschwitz?" After a pause he said: "Have you had enough?" "Enough of what?" "Of the front." "What am I to say?" "If you've had enough, you only need give in." "You mean become a regular?" "Exactly. Then you'd be in the back areas in no time." "Why don't you?" Surkamp shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps I shall sometime, though I hate those people like the plague." "I know some decent ones." "I don't."

Barely an hour later the order came to stand by; Russian tanks were said to have broken through from the northeast, from the direction of Redkovka. The men moved to their positions with remarkable calm. An antitank gun opened up in the wood behind the plantation, and then another, and soon afterward the roar of tank engines could be heard. In spite of the noise of the rapidly approaching battle, the two doctors found it impossible to take anything seriously that morning, and they remained sitting in front of the house. It seemed obvious to them that the Russian tanks would be beaten off before they reached the village. A 7.5 cm. antitank gun took up position on the other side of the road, and not far away an assault gun was driven up behind some bushes, and its long barrel sank slowly among the foliage. The men on the antitank gun grew feverishly busy, its barrel turned slightly to the left, rose and sank and then rose again, the loader put a shell in the breech, the locking mechanism snapped sharply to, and the gunner looked up from his sights and said something to the men behind him. Braun watched the antitank gun crew in fascination; he had never seen one in action at such close quarters. But he" was still incapable of taking it seriously. It still seemed a kind of game.

There was nothing dangerous about it; it was all a matter of swift, smoothly working routine, of the kind that can only be the result of long practice. The gunner pushed his steel helmet farther back on his head and looked through his telescopic sights. A shell from a Russian tank landed to the left of the assault gun; a fountain of earth rose. The branch of a tree quite close to it slowly subsided and remained hanging vertically. The antitank gun fired another round, and the gunner twice raised his fist vertically in the air and called out to to those behind him: "That's number one." "We ought to get out of here," said Surkamp. "Yes," said Braun. But they stayed where they were. The assault gun moved back from the clump of bushes and then forward again to a new position a little distance away. The barrel moved up and down and then stopped. Soon afterward there was a flash of flame from the barrel, followed by yellowy white smoke. Two shells crashed down in front of the clump of bushes where the assault gun had been standing. Branches and twigs flew up in the air and slowly fell to earth again. "I must . . ." said Surkamp, standing up and going toward the corner of the house, where he stopped with his hands in his trouser pockets, looking in the direction from which the roar of the tank engines was coming. "Get back!" shouted the commander of the antitank gun, and the rest of what he said was drowned by another crash from the antitank gun. Braun also had risen to his feet and was going over to Surkamp when the latter said: "They've knocked out two . . ." At that moment a shell exploded with a sharp crack quite close to him, spraying bits of earth on the wall, and a sunflower jerked and slowly collapsed. Braun fell forward onto his knees. Surkamp remained standing as before, looking at Braun, who was startled when he saw the expression on his face. Slowly and thoughtfully Captain Surkamp took his hands from his trouser pockets, felt his chest, his face fell, and then he slumped to the ground. Braun dashed over and dropped down beside him. His eyes were wide open, they looked at Braun, but they were already sightless. He opened his mouth, said: "It's . -> . It's . . ." He put out his tongue and withdrew it again, and it was drowned in a rush of blood, he coughed, brought up more blood, struggled, and groped about him with his hands, and then there was a convulsion and it was over. He went on staring at Braun, staring right through him, but his eyes were no longer mocking, but only glassy and dead. Braun rose to his knees and stayed motionless, looking into the captain's dead eyes. His face had fallen, he looked very old, his lips moved, but no words came. He called Puhlmann, still looking the dead man in the eyes, and his voice was as old and gray as his face.

II The Doctor After the Russian attack was beaten off, we buried Surkamp and two other members of the battalion behind the village. The Russians had lost nine tanks. That night the battalion was sent

forward again. This time we were to take a factory and Height 217.5, which was our final objective. We took the factory in the early hours of the morning almost without resistance. I set up my first-aid station in the solidly built concrete basement; there we remained for four nights and three days, while the battalion assaulted the height, took half of it, and then held the positions it had taken in heavy fighting in the wood. Casualties were not excessive. Wounds were of a type typical of close combat; stab wounds, including bayonet wounds, notably increased, while bullet wounds often showed the typical powder burns that occur when weapons are fired at close range. I tried not to think about Surkamp and his death, but didn't always succeed. While I worked, Surkamp's shadow was nearly always by my side; sometimes I thought I heard his mocking voice, and I often thought I saw his dead, glassy eyes in front of me. I couldn't get rid of his voice and eyes; they haunted me all the time. Why had I not made him take cover? From the fact that the Russians again and again sent badly trained and poorly armed troops against us, some of us concluded that they were throwing their last reserves into the battle. As one corporal remarked, when you hit a rabbit behind the ears, it puts up a terrific struggle with its hind legs —but not for long. They said that the offensive would soon lead to complete success, and now that the initial difficulties had been overcome the road to the Russian back areas lay wide open. In particular, Lieutenant Colonel Hecht's tanks were said to have thrust deep behind the enemy lines and to have made great progress. However, this optimism was modified and gave way to a mood of sullen exasperation when a unit formed of Russian officer cadets was put in against our battalion. These were tough, admirably trained soldiers who fought stubbornly and were said to perform miracles of camouflage and displayed fiendish skill in creeping up to our positions unobserved. The battle for the hill was fought in ancient, primitive fashion—the stealthy approach, the sudden leap and kill, followed by the equally swift disappearance into the undergrowth. It was fought by primitive men equipped with modern automatic weapons who for preference used the bayonet and the spade, but also used fists and teeth. One private first class laughingly showed me his hand, the fourth finger of which was missing. "Tie it up quickly, doctor," he said. "I've got no time, I've got to go back." He said a Russian had bitten off his finger, it had hurt like hell and sent him into a white rage. "Men are not dogs," he said indignantly. "Civilized people don't bite." He had got his own back on the Russian by slowly and deliberately sticking his bayonet into his belly. He showed me the bayonet, which he had sharpened and given a slightly jagged edge. I felt sure the man was exaggerating, but the thought of the blade entering the Russian soldier's body made me shudder. "Put the thing away," I said. He looked at me with a grin. "Bad nerves, doctor? Oh, well, that can happen." I bound him up, and he went back into the wood. Lightly wounded Russian prisoners were sometimes brought to me before being sent back. The sullen, frightened faces and shaved heads of the first two days were displaced by the lively,

intelligent faces of officer cadets who, their guards assured me, never surrendered and could be captured only if they were unconscious. "Many thanks for your trouble, doctor," one of them said to me in excellent German while I bandaged his wounded arm and head. "Perhaps we shall meet again in a prisoner-of-.war camp." "That's hardly likely," I replied. "I'm attached to a combatant unit, I won't have to look after prisoners." "You misunderstand me," he said. "I mean in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp, with you as the prisoner." A broad smile came over his young, handsome face as he said this, but his eyes remained cold and aloof. Could there ever be any bridge between them and us? This battle in the woods round Height 217.5 was conducted with great ruthlessness. A wounded corporal told me that the shockingly mutilated bodies of three German prisoners belonging to a neighboring unit had been found in a dugout. "I saw them with my own eyes," he said. "A sight like that affects you dreadfully. After that we took no more prisoners, as you can well imagine." In my basement I saw nothing of all this. I left it only occasionally to get a breath of fresh air; even then I never got farther than the narrow concrete factory yard, where smashed machinery, empty packing cases, and piles of cardboard boxes were lying about. I was never visited by any senior medical officer from regiment or division, and I never received any orders or instructions from them. The only officers I saw were the battalion commander, who came to see me twice and asked about my work, and the captain commanding the medical transport company. The latter was a little old man with a tired, sad face and gray hair that did not go with his shoulder straps and his Iron Cross, Class I, dating from the First World War. I gave him some coffee, and he, with his bent back and square shoulders, sat on a box and put his gouty fingers around the hot cup as if he wanted to warm them. "The road here's getting worse and worse," he said. "We can't get through at all to the dressing station behind the village. I've lost half my vehicles. Two drivers—" "Your drivers are magnificent, sir," I said. He nodded, and blew the steam from his cup. "Yes, they're good boys," he said. "Nothing is too much for them. I've lost two, two of the best." Then, after a pause, he said what all old men say when they see disaster looming ahead: "Where will it all end?" He looked at me with his light, watery eyes, in which there were both resignation and concern. He was a professor, and that was how he must have looked when he talked to his colleagues about pupils whom he was fond of and felt worried about, though inwardly he had also ceased to care greatly about them. Where would it all end? But did things ever end? Did they not always go on in one way or another? He had seen a great deal in the course of his life, enough to make a quiet old man like him thoughtful and rather resigned. Only young men believed it possible to change the course of events. The driver came in and said: "It's time to go, sir." The captain obediently rose to his feet, put down his cup, wished me good luck, and walked slowly out behind the driver, a tired old man who had no more hopes for himself and knew that the hopes of others were foolish and vain.

On the evening of the fourth day we received orders to withdraw. There were rumors that the Russians had broken into the southern flank of our bridgehead, that our front was breaking up, and that several Russian divisions were about to counterattack in the north. The optimism that had prevailed in spite of the severe fighting and the heavy casualties of the first days of the battle gave way to pessimism. The troops stopped talking about the endless advances of the years from 1939 to 1942, and memories revived of the winter of 1941-42 and of the horrors and hardships of the long retreat of the spring of 1943 during which, by all accounts, conditions were chaotic. "I'm damned grateful to have been hit," said a corporal with a shattered knee who was brought to the dressing station we set up at the edge of the town. "A retreat's a bad business. I know I'll have a permanent stiff leg, it's no use trying to persuade me otherwise, doctor, but a stiff leg's better than what lies ahead." "Do you mean retreat?" I asked. "Yes, and all that it implies," he said. He was in severe pain, but he put up with it patiently, without groaning. He asked how long he would be in the hospital. Three or four months? Five or six, perhaps? After he came out he would probably be discharged, and he could always get a good job in a printing shop, possibly as a foreman. He might also become an armorer N.C.O. in some garrison town or something in the quartermaster's department, not a bad prospect by any means, a quiet job in the daytime, time to go out in the evening, find a girl, settle down and get married, perhaps. What did a stiff leg matter? There were lots of men walking around with stiff legs who were ""perfectly happy. Of course, if what had happened to Sergeant Fink had happened to him, life would have ceased to be worth living, it would be appalling, wouldn't it? But what did a stiff leg matter? He waved to me confidently and cheerfully when his stretcher was lifted into the ambulance and he was driven away. Later I learned that he died in the field hospital of gas gangrene.

After its withdrawal from the wood round Height 217.5 and the factory the battalion was involved in heavy defensive fighting east of Pushkarnoye, but all I knew about it was what I was told by medical orderlies, wounded men, and stragglers. I now had to do all the work that Surkamp and I had previously shared. Once when I was busy dealing with the stump of a cleanly severed arm—the man was unconscious from loss of blood, so I was able to avoid giving him an anesthetic, of which we were now beginning to run short—there flashed through my mind with extraordinary clarity a quotation from Clausewitz that I had come across some months previously in a medical service manual. It was as if a curtain of amnesia had been lifted, and the words appeared almost tangibly in front of me, as if a ray of light had suddenly illuminated the phrases over which I had pondered at the time without understanding them properly. The passage was this:

We do not want to hear of generals who win battles without bloodshed. If bloodshed and slaughter are terrible sights, that should encourage us to set a higher valuation on war, but not to allow humanitarianism to blunt our swords— until somebody suddenly appears on the scene with a sharp sword and uses it to sever our right arm. Well, here in front of me lay a man into whose right hand a sharp sword had been pressed while others had allowed their swords to grow blunt. But hardly out of humanitarian-ism, I said to myself; it was he who suddenly appeared on the scene with a sharp sword and nevertheless his arm had been severed; in the meantime the others had sharpened their swords, too. No, that was not the answer. It was absurd to seek for an answer. What did the Bible say? He who draws the sword . . . There was also another saying: a tooth for a tooth. Blood, I said to myself, blood. But supposing some keep to the Bible and others do not; supposing some believe' that he who draws the sword shall perish by the sword and others believe in a tooth for a tooth, or do not believe in the Bible at all—blood, I said to myself, blood. I thought of blood as of a living thing, a thing with a life of its own, a thing independent of humanity; having its own life, its own laws, its own language. It flowed and flowed, soaked through the bandages, through this bandage round the stump of the upper arm, it soaked under the bandage, through the bandage, kept flowing as if there were no bandage at all, unquenchable, following its own laws, bursting out here if it was stopped there, dripping, flowing, dark red or light red, thick or thin, no use trying to stop it, stop it here and it breaks out somewhere else, fresh blood, blood flowing like water. He who draws the sword, a tooth for a tooth, don't let your swords grow blunt, the unstanchable stream of blood, humanitarianism, who has the right to, full of inconsistencies and absurdities, how is one to find the answer? How is one to find the answer? I was bewildered and dispirited; and, when I had finished with the case and was about to start on the next, I stared at it helplessly, and did not know what to do. I looked at the pale, unshaved face, the half-open, bloodless lips, I heard the moans, I saw the man biting his lower lip, I saw that he was wounded in the hip and was aware that I must do something, and do it right away, but all I could do was to stare at the wound and the blood dripping from it to the floor, staining it a dirty red. What was it I must do? What was it I must do? "Sir!" I heard Puhlmann say, and a moment later I heard him say again: "Sir!" "Yes," I said, and still I could not move. Yes, I said to myself, yes, and then it struck me that I was simply overtired. That was it, of course, I was simply overtired. It was not only the wounded of my own battalion who were brought to me or came to me of their own accord. When did I sleep last? Also the evacuation of the wounded no longer functioned smoothly—what had become of the little captain with the tired face? What was I to do with all these wounded? I was alone, the house was full of wounded, lying on straw, on the bare floor, groans and shrieks and pain, more and more kept on arriving, more blood, wounded lying in the garden, on straw, on the bare earth. Doctor, doctor, doctor, please. Stretcher-bearer, stretcher-bearer, help, help, help, doctor, it hurts, my head, my stomach, I'm done for, help, help, give me something to drink, help, my chest, it's bleeding, doctor, still bleeding, my legs, give me something to drink, he mustn't have anything to drink, Puhlmann, give him as much as he likes to drink, it won't make any dif-

ference now, it will have to be amputated, where do they all come from? Where the devil do they all come from? Am I alone in this damned country? Why do they all come here? Where else are they to go? When did I sleep last? Look, doctor, he's bleeding to death. Stop making that row, yelling like a maniac for nothing but a scratch, what will the others think of you? Puhlmann, make me some coffee, yes, coffee, are you deaf? Where are we to put them all, doctor? How the hell should I know? Take them away, take them away. TAKE THEM AWAY. "Sir!" Puhlmann said for the third time, and I felt him touching my arm. "Yes, what is it?" I said impatiently. "Don't you feel well, sir?" "Bring me a pervitin tablet," I said. "No, bring me two." Toward evening, after it had started to rain, Grenadier Kaiser was brought in. The private first class who brought him in told me that he had held up the Russians for several hours singlehanded; he had stayed in his foxhole, armed only with his rifle, after the others had cleared out, and he had prevented the Russians from emerging from the wood over there toward the northeast. He had gone on firing as if at the rifle range, scoring a bull's-eye with every round. Nothing the Russians had done was able to stop him—and there were some people who said that the rifle was an obsolete weapon. Kaiser had stayed in his foxhole until the major had rallied his men and made them go back. They had found Kaiser still there. He was still firing, though no Russians were now in sight. Load, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire. New clip, load, aim, fire, reload, aim, fire. . . . They had had to take the rifle away from him. The two or two and a half hours during which he had been alone with the Russians all round him had so got into his blood that he couldn't stop firing. The private said it reminded him of peacetime, after you had been driving a heavy truck all day and all night. You went on driving it after you had gone to bed, you still went on stepping on the gas and breaking and accelerating and changing gears in your sleep, you still saw the trees and the milestones passing and felt the rattle and the vibration, and only managed to shake it off and get some proper rest toward morning. That's what it must have been like with Grenadier Kaiser, said the private. It wasn't surprising, he'd been at the front for only two or three days. He was a brave boy and he'd soon come round. The major had said that he'd probably come round if I kept him with me for a while, otherwise he'd have to be sent back for treatment. "Or—could it be permanent?" asked the private. "I hope not," I said. "It will pass, I hope." "He's a brave boy," the private said and went away, and the rain closed in behind him like a curtain. I took the grenadier down to the basement, where he crept into the darkest corner and sat with a vacant expression and lusterless eyes. When Puhlmann took him some coffee and bread and margarine, he swallowed them down greedily, then put his hands back around his knees and gazed mistrustfully straight ahead of him. Once I heard him say: "No, not me. No, I shan't! I can't help it. No, not me!" Then he giggled, and a little while later he said: "Have you got a cigarette? No, I can't now, I've got no time, can't you see? I can't help it." Then he was quiet for a long time, and suddenly I heard him say loudly and distinctly: "The enemy fire was so heavy that it was impossible to evacuate the wounded."

III On the slimy floor of the foxhole sat a big green frog. Its large, protruding eyes looked straight up; and Grenadier Kaiser, who wanted to become an officer, had the feeling that it was trying to outstare him. It had brown stripes on its shiny back, and its sides expanded and contracted rapidly with its breathing. Or was it with its heartbeat? Grenadier Kaiser picked a blade of grass and carefully stroked the frog's back with it. The frog jumped up the wall, slipped, slid back to where it started from, and went on panting as before, still with a slight disdainful and mocking expression, in which there was now, perhaps, a trace of anxiety. "Are you afraid, froggie?" asked Grenadier Kaiser, who Was squatting with his head between his knees. "There's no need to be afraid, nobody's going to do you any harm, froggie, or are you an enchanted prince? Where's your princess?" A witch ought to appear and turn you yourself into a frog, or a mouse, he said to himself, or, better still, into a bird. One could then fly away. Or it would be even better to be made invisible, with no body at all, like a ghost; they could fire straight through you without doing you any harm. "Are you afraid, froggie?" he said aloud. "Froggie, you're a shit." I should get up and look around, he thought. But he didn't. He squatted in his hole, made himself as small as possible and didn't move. When he turned his head he saw the bare, ravaged branches of a tree; it looked like a wild plum. Odd, there were trees just like it at home, near the ruins of the old castle, and the frog was just like the frogs in the pond in the wood immediately below it. The pond was in the middle of a little wood, and it was dark and as smooth as a mirror. Weeds grew thickly all around it, but at one point a long wooden catwalk led down to the water, and in summer Kaiser used it to dive from. The water looked brownish, but actually it was clear and perfectly clean, as you could tell by looking at it closely; the brown color came from the leafy bottom. In the undergrowth above the pond he had struggled for three hours with Erni before she had given in; she had been his first girl, and he had set about matters too ceremoniously on that warm, summer evening, but by no means unskillfully, when he came to think about it later. After he had acquired rather more experience of life, he realized that it had really been quite easy, and that she had not bled, as she would have done if she had been as innocent as she maintained; she had sworn that he was the first, and that was why it took such a long time. Never mind, it was all the same now, because soon afterward she went with Willy, which hurt dreadfully at the time, but not for long, because then she went with Sigrid, who took her to the same place by the pond on the third day she went out with him, and that time she didn't pretend to be innocent, and it was all much simpler and more straightforward. Come on, you silly little boy, am I the first girl you've had? The shells crashed into the earth with a short, sharp, vicious crack. Grenadier Kaiser heard them whine or whistle; he could not really have said whether it was a whistle or a whine or what

sort of noise it was, but, whatever it was, it' was alarming and unpleasant, it penetrated to the marrow and made him cower still deeper in his hole. "It's hot," he said, looking at the frog. He did not know he was talking to the frog. Or rather he did know, and it made him feel slightly ashamed, and he said to himself that he must be crazy to talk to a frog, but the truth was that he was not really in the hole at all, but outside. Out there was the road leading over the gap in the hills, the low wooded hilltop with the river behind it on the left, and on the right the wood in which were the Russians. A hundred or a hundred and fifty yards behind him there was another wood. Shells exploded all around him, and every now and then the gray-green turrets of Russian tanks appeared over the top of the slope, fired, and then withdrew. There was a constant hail of fire from rifles and machine guns (v/here the devil were they?), and a hail of tracer bullets from the German four-barreled, light antiaircraft guns, which were being used for the ground battle (he had seen the guns that morning before the battle began); they exploded with a flash at the end of their trajectory. The German machine guns rattled furiously and their Russian counterparts more slowly and deliberately, making the rifle fire sound thin and pathetic. There were also the wounded and the dead (he had counted fourteen a little while before), a shattered tree on his left and another on his right front; a little farther away there were others, among them one or two of which nothing remained but the split trunk, like pictures he had seen of the First World War, Verdun or the Somme or wherever it was, and the gray, oppressive sky, and the hot sun right behind him; everything was suffused with a strange, pale-brown tint, there was a brownish shimmer even on the grass, as if he were looking through sunglasses. He had the impression that it was the difference— the difference between war as he had imagined it and war as it really was—that endowed the whole visible world with this strange brown tint, a feeling he'd had in dreams. Nothing special happened in those dreams but they were full of horror, and he woke wet with perspiration and his heart beating hard. The difference was his fear. Rapidly approaching footsteps startled him. He rose cautiously and looked over the edge of the foxhole. A man was running back, toward him. He was panting, and his steel helmet was pushed forward over his eyes. He had his rifle in his right hand and with his left he was holding his gas mask. A runner. Kaiser did not know him. He knew hardly anyone, not even his neighbor crouching in a foxhole only a few yards away. The man dodged to one side—and was hit. Kaiser saw two holes appear in his jacket just above the belt. A few scraps of white cloth floated gently to earth. The upper part of the man's body was flung backward, the rifle flew from his hand, he thumped to the ground, making a suppressed, muffled sound. For a few moments he lay there motionless; then he raised his head and tried to get up. But his arms buckled, and he collapsed with his face to the ground. For a moment or two he stayed like that, then, with superhuman effort, he slowly turned his head, looked at Kaiser, but didn't seem to see him. His eyes had the thoughtful, self-absorbed expression of a woman who, for the first time feels the stirring of her unborn child. His dirty face was covered with scratches, and dribble from his mouth turned the earth with which his lips were spattered into a blob of dirty mud. "He's had it," the man in the next foxhole called out. "He ought to be taken back," Kaiser said.

He made no effort to get out of his hole and go to help the wounded man, though he was only six or seven paces away. He told himself that the man ought to be taken back, and taken back quickly, but he had no intention of doing anything himself. "Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!" the man in the next hole started yelling. The wounded man muttered something, but Kaiser realized what it was only after he fell silent again. "God!" he had said. "Dear God!" Kaiser shouted: "Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!" A burst from a machine gun zipped through the branches of the tree on the right and broke off a few dry twigs. Now they both shouted: "Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!" The wounded man suddenly turned on his side, pulled up his knees, and rolled over again on his back. He uttered inarticulate noises that finally turned into the words: "Dear God—I—help me, help me!" "Christ!" Kaiser exclaimed in desperation. "He ought to _ be taken back. He ought to be taken back." "Stretcher-bearers!" shouted the other man. "Help! Help me! Please help me!" the wounded man screamed. He was weeping. Kaiser could tell that from the voice, but he did not dare look. "Anyone who shows himself will get shot," said the man in the other foxhole, and this seemed to stimulate Kaiser's memory, for he vividly recalled a passage from a war report that he had read somewhere: The enemy fire was so heavy that it was impossible to evacuate the wounded. "Stretcher-bearers!" he shouted. "Stretcher-bearers!" The wounded man turned over on his side once more and rocked to and fro, to and fro, sobbing: "My stomach—it's my stomach—dear Lord, please—help, help!" "The enemy fire was so heavy . . ." Kaiser whispered. "Do you know him?" the other man asked. "No." A long way off on their left they saw a man approaching across a small field. Crouching, he stumbled in an odd, clumsy way and every now and then he flung himself into a furrow. "Someone's coming! Someone's coming!" the other man called out in triumph. "There he is! . . . Can't you hear me?" Kaiser laid his rifle on the parapet and started firing blindly into the wood on his right. When the clip was empty, he went on for a time furiously working the bolt. Then he realized that the clip was empty, and that sobered him up. He reloaded, and looked around for the man who had been approaching, but he had disappeared. "Where is he?" he asked his neighbor. "Where's the stretcher-bearer?" "Probably in a hole," the other man said. "He'll come." He said this too loudly, too dispassionately and too confidently; and it was obvious from his voice he was trying as hard as Kaiser not to hear the shrieks of the wounded man.

"Do you have a cigarette?" asked Kaiser. "Yes, sure." The wounded man was panting, as if at the end of an exhausting race or as if he could deaden the pain by breathing quickly. Six low, thick fountains of earth rose out of the ground immediately in front—mortar bombs. Kaiser held out his hand and waited for the cigarettes to be produced from the other man's breast pocket. The other man was not much older than Kaiser; he had a round, soft face and small merry eyes, which now were anxious and frightened; and on one side of his nose there was a small brown wart. He gave Kaiser a forced smile, and said: "Got them yesterday, our sergeant's a marvel, gets us everything." He passed the opened package across to Kaiser, Kaiser read the name "Sport" on it, and both behaved as if the wounded man did not exist. The latter was now muttering something in a shrill, childish voice. The hand that passed Kaiser the cigarettes was covered in a worn, brown leather glove; the forefinger was torn at the seam, showing a small patch of white skin. "Thanks," Kaiser said. He took a cigarette with stiff, clumsy fingers and put it in his mouth. His hand struck his face, the cigarette flew away, his head was jerked back against the upper edge of the foxhole, the strap of his steel helmet cut sharply into his neck, and he found himself crouching at the bottom of the hole again, staring at the frog, which had not moved from its place. Small lumps of earth fell on Kaiser's back and shoulders, followed by something heavier, which slid down over his shoulders and ended up on the ground, next to the frog, which in terror jumped into Kaiser's face, fell back, jumped again, disappeared. A gentle hum filled Kaiser's ears, small dry lumps of earth rained down from the sides of the hole. Kaiser stared at the object lying on the slimy floor and could not imagine what it was. He wondered how it had got there, there was something so familiar about it and he was not really surprised at seeing it in a place where it did not really belong. . . . It was a hand in a worn leather glove. It lay on its back, half open, with bent fingers, the forefinger was torn at the seam, showing some whitish skin and a bit of nail; on the wrist there was a big square watch, the second hand still turning, turning, turning . . . over it the bone was visible through the torn flesh. "Twenty past two," Kaiser whispered, and stared at the watch. "Twenty past two." Then he recognized the hand, that is to say, he connected it with the body to which it had belonged. He fell silent, looked up, and saw some torn pieces of clothing in the branches of the tree, some of them bloodstained. He picked himself up and looked out. There was now nothing but a big round shell hole where his neighbor's foxhole had been. The world and he with it had grown remarkably gentle, mild, and peaceful. It did not affect him, it had nothing to do with him. Carefully he picked up the hand and threw it into the shell hole. He went on looking at it for a few moments, turned and found himself staring straight into the wide-open, thoughtful eyes of the wounded man, whom he had completely forgotten, and reality burst in upon him again. He noticed that the man now had a fresh wound that had not been there before; the sleeve of his left arm was torn, a big piece of muscle was showing, the bone was exposed, and the wound was bleeding badly. "I've been hit again. I can't move. Help me, please," the man said.

His words came from a long way off, they came very softly and slowly from his half-open mouth, and to Kaiser it seemed that it was not the wounded man speaking but somebody else standing beside him, or even, perhaps, himself. Slowly he turned away. Slowly and deliberately he moved his rifle forward, pressed the butt into his shoulder, laid his cheek on the cool smooth wood, and his lips inaudibly formed the words: The enemy fire was so heavy that . . . He did not look in the direction of the wounded man again, though he saw him all the same. The man rolled onto his belly, and when he put his weight on his wounded arm he screamed. He remained lying like that for a moment or two, staring fixedly at Kaiser. Kaiser fired. Once, twice, three times. Slowly, with unnaturally rigid features and protruding upper lip, the wounded man started creeping on his elbows toward Kaiser, slowly, with a terrifying, calm, inhuman determination. The blood still flowed profusely from his arm, leaving a broad trail behind him. A soldier carrying two ammunition boxes rushed by, flung himself to the ground, got up again, and disappeared as if swallowed up by the earth. Kaiser fired two more rounds. He reloaded. A machine gun rattled, another joined in, a white trail of fire came from the light antiaircraft guns, followed by a series of crashing explosions from the edge of the wood; a voice called for stretcher-bearers. The wounded man crept closer. A heavy shell burst on Kaiser's right front and sent up a thick fountain of earth. A thin dark veil of dust was swept toward him by the breeze. It went on hanging in the air long after the fountain had collapsed. The wounded man crept closer. Now he was only four or five paces away. Sweat and tears rolled down his face. Slowly, carefully, Kaiser aimed and fired at the dark fleeting shadows between the trees. He put a new clip into the magazine, and the wounded man was only three paces away. The wounded man called him. Kaiser took no notice. He must fire his rifle. He must stay in this hole. Here he was safe. Only in the hole was he safe. The hole was a small island. Here nothing could happen to ■ ——"lilm. He must not leave it; otherwise the same thing would happen to him that had happened to the wounded man, who was creeping closer and closer—he would soon be so close that Kaiser would be able to touch him with the muzzle of his rifle—with his shattered arm and that crazy, murderous expression in his eyes, his pinched, stiff face, which was quite wet and as gray as the ground beneath him. He was moving more slowly, much more slowly than before. But still he came on, with those murderous eyes of his, as if he wanted . . . What was it he wanted, why did he come creeping toward him like this? The same thing would happen to him as had happened to the man with the hand and to all the others. As long as he stayed in this hole and went on firing he was safe, he must stay in this hole until it was all over, until... He fired. The wounded man was two paces away. Then his strength failed him. He made one or two desperate efforts, then his efforts grew feebler and feebler, and very softly but distinctly he called out: "You dirty dog! You filthy, dirty dog!"

He tried to shout for stretcher-bearers, but his voice failed him, he coughed and spat, and started sobbing like a small child, and Kaiser tried not to look at him. About twenty minutes later he died. And then the Russians attacked. Their infantry advanced from the edge of the wood, and their tanks moved forward on both sides of the road. Kaiser fired. He fired, and went on firing after the others ran back. He took careful aim, and very often he hit his target.

IV The Doctor Shortly before midnight there was a stir of activity in the house. I had managed to snatch an hour's sleep down in the basement when Puhlmann came in and told me excitedly that the major and the general had arrived. The general was talking to the wounded upstairs on the ground floor and distributing cigarettes. The major had asked where I and Grenadier Kaiser were, and he, Puhlmann, had asked whether he should fetch me, because I was down in the basement, where Kaiser was, too. "No, no, don't disturb him, we'll go down," the general had said. "Go and tell him we're coming." I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Puhlmann hurried to the door and opened it wide. A small, potbellied man with round shoulders and a tired, ordinary face entered the room. Behind him stood his aide-de-camp—a whole head and shoulders taller—and the major. The general held out his hand for a fleeting handshake, and said: "Very busy, doctor?" His voice was quiet, slightly nasal, the small bright eyes behind his round glasses blinking at me alertly. "Yes, sir." "Have you a Grenadier Kaiser here?" "Yes, sir." I pointed to Kaiser, who was crouching in the corner barely visible in the dim light of the oil lamp. "Is he badly wounded?" asked the general. "He's not wounded, sir," I said. "But?" "He's rather confused." "Only temporarily, no doubt?" said the general. "I hope so, sir." "Will he require special treatment?" "I think so, sir." He nodded, and walked with quick, tripping footsteps across the room, past the wounded men who looked at him in wide-eyed silence, stepped carefully over the outstretched legs of an unconscious man, unbuttoned his pocket, and took from it an Iron Cross, Class I. He stopped in front of Kaiser, hesitated, bent down, and pinned the Iron Cross to his tunic. Kaiser did not move. He did not even raise his head.

The general rose, paused for a moment as if searching for words to say to the man he had decorated, and came tripping back across the room. "Please see that he is taken back quickly, doctor." "Yes, sir," I said. "And, while I'm here, do you have any headache tablets?" "Of course, sir," I said, and went to fetch them from the little room next door where we kept our supplies, but Puhlmann was quicker and got there first. The general motioned to his aide-decamp, who produced some packages of cigarettes from his map case. The general passed them out to the wounded men. "Thank you, sir, thank you, sir, thank you very much, sir," they said. He exchanged a few words with some of them, and they answered shyly and hesitantly, and ,it~was obvious that the general's thoughts were elsewhere. Puhlmann appeared with a box of aspirin and handed it to me. I waited for the general to complete his tour of the room, and then said to him: "Would you like to take a tablet now, sir?" "No, thank you; later." I handed the tablets to the aide, and the general said to me: "Let me thank you for all you are doing for the wounded." He gave me his hand and left, and his aide-de-camp walked out behind him. At the doorway the major turned and said: "Get everything ready to move, Braun. Transport will be here in two hours." Then he too left, and Kaiser's voice came from the corner where he was squatting. "Not me, not me . . ." And a moment later: "The enemy fire was so heavy that it was impossible to evacuate the wounded." "Poor devil!" a voice exclaimed. "What's the good of that Christmas-tree decoration to him now?" another man said, a trifle enviously. "He'll come round all right. I've seen similar cases before," said the first voice. Later I often wondered about the meaning of the words that Kaiser had muttered. What had he been through? But that was something that probably no one would ever know.

I saw the general three days later, beside the railway embankment, when I amputated his leg. After our retreat from Pushkarnoye, and then from Tomarovka, and even farther to the west, division of time ceased. There were no days neatly divided into twenty-four hours, or weeks consisting of six days followed by a seventh which was a Sunday, and with it an end and a beginning. There was nothing but an endless flow of nameless days and nights, flowing either as slowly as honey or as quickly as rapid drumbeats. No Mondays or Wednesdays or Sundays or dates of the month, but only days on which the heat was intolerable, when the dust hung in thick clouds over the endless column of men, covered our uniforms, obliterated all signs of rank, and made everybody's face equally dirty. On those days our hobnailed boots sank softly into the thick dust, words, orders, oaths, and exclamations were muffled and inaudible as if spoken into cotton batting. On those days the water in the radiators started boiling after a few miles^ the engines stalled, more wrecks in the endless series of similar wrecks; and always the cry for water.

And days, when rain turned the dust into swamp, boots squelched and stuck, water ran down our faces, necks, backs, clammy uniforms and socks, sliding, skidding, whirring wheels in the mud; an overturned truck—another wreck. Mud, black mud, brown mud, gray mud, green mud, mud on one's boots, hands, face, everywhere, mud under the grass. Sunflowers drooped sadly in the mud, God-damn water, thirst: no water because there was too much, only mud. Rain poured down our faces, we tried to catch it with our tongues. Rusty instruments, wet, slimy bandages; no more cases of heatstroke but sore feet and fever cases, and occasionally some wounded. After all, there was a war on. One of the fixed points in this chaos was the day when Puhlmann promoted a small cask of liquor. What headaches we had next day, that is to say, Puhlmann and I and three or four wounded men who had joined in, and how the consumption of aspirin went up! Then there was the day when I received five letters from my mother and three from Erika (very affectionate, but a lot of nonsense, of course), as well as letters from other people. The letters that gave me most pleasure were those from my mother and my friend Max Ring, who was now a lieutenant. All this lasted for about a month. Then I was hit myself. The battle took place at the beginning of the month, and the general was wounded about the middle of it. While I amputated his leg he cleaned his glasses.

V Pfc. Hildebrandt We had lost the battle. We, the assault battalion, were one of the few units that managed to hold up the Russians. But in four or five days we had to give up all the ground that we had won. When we counterattacked west of Tomarovka with a few of Lieutenant Colonel Wolff's surviving tanks, we made quite good progress at first, and caused great confusion among the Russians, and knocked out about fifteen of their tanks. But then they rallied and we were held up. The general came to see us. We were to hold the ground we had regained. The small party to which I belonged was under the command of a sergeant of No. 2 Company, and our job was to hold a grade crossing. We squatted in a big sewer pipe under the em bankment, sitting in green, evil-smelling slime with knees drawn up and bent heads, and listened to the burstings of the Russian shells. We had two sentries posted outside who were to warn us when the Russian infantry attacked again. When ever that happened we occupied the holes we had dug in the embankment and in the field around the grade crossing; and, as soon as the attack was over and the artillery started up again we crept back into the pipe. Nothing very much could happen to us there, unless the pipe was buried at both ends, but that was very unlikely. I hardly knew the people Drexler and I had got mixed up with. Not a good thing in those circumstances, though I personally had no very great objection. If we held a "strategic withdrawal" to be necessary, so to speak, and suddenly vanished, not many questions would be asked.

"Anyone got some butter?" asked the sergeant. He had a red face, and his eyebrows and eyelids were singed. (A Russian flame-thrower tank had tried to smoke us out, but fortunately one of our Panthers shot it up before it succeeded.) "I have," I said. I was reluctant to part with the bit of butter that I had left, but it was just as well to be obliging. If you gave somebody a bit of butter or a cigarette, he was less likely to leave you in the lurch than if you were a complete stranger. "Hand it over," said the sergeant, and I took out my butter tin and gave it to him. He unscrewed it and smeared the butter on his face with his dirty fingers. "Burns like hell." A tremendous crash very close by. Another immediately overhead, but we had at least six feet of earth over our heads, so there wasn't much to worry about. "The doctor's behind the wood," I said to the sergeant. "He's sure to have something for burns." "Butter will do," said the sergeant. "Bet we'll have to get outside again in a minute?" somebody said. "No, not for at least an hour," said somebody else. A third man—I recognized his voice as that of the usual platoon humorist—said: "Through this hollow passage leads the way—who said that, professor?" (They had picked up the habit of calling me professor from Drexler.) "Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, but it should be: 'Through this hollow passage must he come/ " I said, and could have kicked myself. No wonder none of them took me seriously, no wonder they all grinned and the sergeant looked at me derisively. It was my own fault. I should have told him to lick my arse, and that the quotation was from Hannibal ante portas, or Napoleon, or Arminius, or anybody you like, and he could creep right up it if he liked, because there was even more shit up there than here, and that would be just the right thing for him. I should have told him something of the sort, but that was the kind of thing I always think of when it's too late. One of the sentries came dashing in from his foxhole and yelled: "Sergeant, the general's coming, the general!" He vanished, the sergeant panicked and said: "He's mad! What's the general doing here?" The platoon humorist added: "Hacu-, hacu-lination—what's the word, professor?" He spoke with the cruelty of children laughing at the school fat boy or a boy with a funny name, but this time I was ready with the right answer. "Never mind, junior, it's a dirty word, better not use it," I said. Too bad nobody heard, because at that moment the sergeant shouted at us to shut up. We all stared fascinated toward the light at the end of the hole. We heard the rattle of a machine gun, but also the general's voice. "Yes, sir," a voice answered him, and again: "Yes, sir." "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" the sergeant groaned, nervously adjusting his steel helmet and fidgeting with his belt. Then he started creeping toward the entrance. There were two short, sharp, almost simultaneous detonations, lumps of earth rained down on the soft ground, and a little man with golden epaulets and a steel helmet askew on his head crept in through the veil of dust outside the entrance. He muttered something, picked up a small object lying in the mud in

front of him, rubbed it on his sleeve, and held it irresolutely in his hand for a moment or two before putting it back in his pocket. I had just time to see that it was an Iron Cross. The general looked at the sergeant, who was crouching in front of him, obviously at a loss how to behave in these circumstances. In spite of the darkness (another officer squeezed into the pipe, no doubt his aide-de-camp, a lieutenant) the general smiled in a rather forced and embarrassed manner. "That was a pretty close shave, wasn't it?" he said. "Never mind about reporting your unit, sergeant." "Very good, sir!" the sergeant bellowed. "Not so loud, please. Your name's Ansbacher isn't it?" "Yes, sir," the sergeant whispered. The general nodded. For a moment he seemed at a loss for words. Then he said: "Could you move in a bit more?" The sergeant retreated toward us, the general crept in, behind him the tall lieutenant. When they could not go any farther, the general sat down rheumatically and drew up his knees, after frowning at the disagreeable smell and his dirty hands. The lieutenant did the same, and his discomfort was even more evident than that of the general. "Would you like a cigarette?" the general asked. "Yes, sir, thank you very much, sir," said the sergeant. The lieutenant produced some brand-new packages of cigarettes from his pocket, and was unsure how to start passing them around. The general took a package from him and handed it to the sergeant, who helped himself to a cigarette with dirty, trembling fingers, which were still smeared with my butter. "Pass them on," said the general, and the sergeant passed them to me. "Now we know how useful a sewer-pipe can be," the general said in his soft, slightly nasal voice. "Yes, sir," said the sergeant. "I wanted to express my appreciation, sergeant, of the very gallant way in which you have been fighting," said the general. "Thank you—" the sergeant bellowed, and then, noticing that the general winced, added in a whisper, "Sir!" They went on talking for a time, about how important it was to hold the grade crossing, and about the Russians, who were not supermen, after all, and the general said that reinforcements were on the way. It would take some time for them to arrive, and until then we must hold out. The general then asked the names of all the men in the sewer-pipe. The sergeant did not know my name, so I announced it myself, and the general said: "Hildebrandt? Where do you come from?" "Brunswick, sir," I said. They went on talking for a time, and it was more and more obvious how out of place the general felt. Obviously he had come to strengthen the morale of the few who were still fighting, and now that he thought he had strengthened it, convinced us that nothing was ever as bad as it seemed, and shown us that he was still there, as we could see, he wanted to be off again. He concluded by saying that he hoped we would carry on in the same way. "Yes, sir," everybody said.

The general signed to the lieutenant, and the sergeant shouted: '"Shun!" The lieutenant crept out, the general after him, and they disappeared. We heard the sentry outside say: "Yes, sir," and then there was a loud crash and then quiet, and then we heard the voice of the sentry yelling as if he had gone out of his mind: "Sergeant! Sergeant! The general! The general!" We all made for the opening, great commotion, and saw the general lying on the ground with his leg nearly blown off, the lieutenant's head was gone, the sentry was kneeling beside the general, repeating: "O God! O God!" The general said something, but so softly that we could not hear, and the blood flowed from the huge wound and formed a pool, the sergeant ran around in circles like a terrified hen, shouting orders that nobody understood and nobody obeyed. Drexler went over to the general and tied up his leg, and nearly stopped the bleeding. He did it so quickly, calmly, and efficiently that I admired him for it, and then he looked up and said to the sergeant: "Send somebody for the doctor. Send for some stretcher-bearers."

The Doctor We brought the wounded general back to the place beside the embankment where I had set up my first-aid station. There was great excitement; the major turned up, then an incredibly fat colonel—Muller I think his name was, the regimental commander—as well as a lieutenant colonel and several other officers; and they all stood round looking at the general until I asked them to get out of the way. They obeyed, as if I were their equal in rank; I am sure they would actually have helped me if I had asked them to. The leg had been tied up so tight that it was hardly bleeding. The general must have been in terrible pain, but he made no sound. The leg was attached only by a few thin pieces of muscle and skin; the shattered bone protruded. It would have -to be amputated at once. The general was fully conscious. He said—and it was obvious how hard it was for him to speak: "How does it look, doctor?" "Bad, sir," I said. "I must operate at once." "Amputate?" "Yes, sir." "Hadn't we better get a surgeon from the medical company?" the lieutenant colonel said. "Lippschitz?" "Nonsense!" said the fat colonel. "What could Lippschitz do here?" "But a surgeon—" "Where will you get one that quickly?" The general gave me a long, searching look: "Do what you think necessary, doctor. In God's name, amputate. . . ." He looked at the officers standing around him, and said impatiently: "Return to your posts, gentlemen. Colonel Muller, take over command until further notice." "Yes, sir," said the fat colonel in his falsetto voice. He clicked his heels and saluted, the other officers did the same, and then they went away. You could tell from their backs how relieved they were that they were allowed to leave.

"I don't think I could stand a general anesthetic," the general said. "I think you had better give me a local." While I was busy with my preparations, he unbuttoned his pocket, took out his spectacle case, opened it, and his fingers trembled only very slightly as he did so. Only when he put on his glasses did I realize what there was about his face that I had been missing the whole time. Then he produced a snow-white handkerchief and started polishing the glasses. "Haven't we met before?" he said. "Yes, sir." "Wasn't it in that basement, in connection with that—that Grenadier Kaiser, whom I. . . ?" "Yes, sir. You gave Kaiser the Iron Cross, Class I." "Yes, I remember," he murmured. "Isn't your name Braun?" "Yes, sir." "Did Kaiser come round?" "I had him sent back, sir. Are you in pain, sir?" "Well, not too bad." "The injection will soon work. Then you won't feel anything, sir." "Oh, it's not too bad." He went on calmly polishing the lenses. His fingers made slow, circular movements with the handkerchief, first one lens, then the other, first one, then the other. "My aide-de-camp?" "He was killed instantly, sir." Silence. "One ought to . . . one ought to . . ." Then he said: "Will the stump be big enough for a decent false leg?" "I think so," I said, and wondered how I- should have behaved in his place. No doubt I should have yelled and groaned and cursed. He must have been in great pain, but his slightly nasal voice was calm and normal, and only his ashen face was even smaller and more pinched than usual. I felt great admiration for this unpretentious man who had such self-control, but also I had a feeling of slight discomfort. At this moment just before the amputation, how could he ask questions about the stump I was going to leave him? He put on his glasses, blinked, took them off, and started cleaning them again, while I rapidly severed the damaged muscles and skin and let the amputated leg drop to the floor, taking care that he would not see it. Puhlmann picked it up and removed it, almost with reverence. "Dealing with a wounded general must be rather an unusual experience for you, I suppose?" "That's true enough, sir," I said. I cleaned the wound, removed the damaged tissue, and cut through the bone splinters. "What a very unpleasant noise that makes," the general remarked. "Are you in pain?" "No, not any longer." "A swab, please." Puhlmann passed me a swab. My hands were dirty and bloodstained, and I had to be careful to avoid bringing them into contact with the wound. "Have you nearly finished?" The general's voice now sounded a trifle impatient. "Yes, sir."

"Disagreeable, most disagreeable," he muttered, and his fingers resumed their circular motion on his glasses. "I'll give you a shot of morphine, sir." "Morphine?" "It will make the trip back more bearable." "Well, if you must. . ." An armored troop-carrier appeared over the edge of the hollow with roaring engine and slid to a stop on the slope. A sergeant jumped out, saluted and said: "I'm to take the general to the airfield. . . ." Then he noticed the general and gaped in astonishment, his hand still on his steel helmet. "All right, sergeant," the general said. "Wait by your vehicle." The sergeant left. It was very quiet in the hollow. The wounded men craned their necks to look at us, and I felt almost proud of myself. No surgeon in the world would have found anything to criticize in the way I had done the job. I laid a thick layer of muslin over the wound, replaced the temporary bandage around the stump with a rubber bandage, and wondered whether I should or should not fill in one of the usual casualty cards. Why not? I said to myself. Even a general must have one, because of the time when the bandage was put on, if for no other reason. I asked him to put on his spectacles, he blinked at me shortsightedly, nodded, and put them on, and I bared his arm, rubbed the skin with alcohol, gave him a morphine injection and an antitetanus injection, and asked Puhlmann for a card. Then I sat down and filled it in, while the general watched me in silence, with eyes that had grown troubled. When I had completed the card, I wondered whether to tie it to the general's buttonhole, which was the normal routine. I did so. He went on gazing at me fixedly, with his small, bright, now very tired and sad eyes, and said nothing. When we carried him out to the armored vehicle, he opened his lips and said something; but it was drowned by the noise of the heavy engine starting up. So I only saluted, and stood for a while at the edge of the hollow, gazing at the vehicle as it drove away, and suddenly and unexpectedly I had the feeling that I had suffered a great loss. Why? I hardly knew the general. Perhaps it was the knowledge that the division had lost its commander, the man who bore responsibility for us all, who thought for us, planned for us, gave orders, and alone knew the way out of our difficult situation. I felt strangely naked and helpless and lost. After that we kept on going farther and farther back, and at the beginning of August I was wounded myself.

VI They camped under a clump of trees not far from the road, next to a small horse-drawn supply column from the back areas that had become involved in the chaos of retreat. A soldier was sitting next to a dead horse. When it began to grow light, the doctor and Puhlmann went back toward the road. They were crossing a field when two Russian fighter-bombers attacked the column of vehicles on the road. The two men flung themselves down. They heard

the whine and explosion of the bombs, the doctor felt a blow on the side and back, it did not hurt, but he knew at once that he had been hit, and he did not care. Was this the answer? With difficulty he turned over on his back. Not on my belly, not with my face in the dirt—he felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He felt very calm. Was this the answer? He thought of the singing wineglass in his kit, and then he thought of a lot of other things, but casually, for everything seemed very remote, and this time the taste of blood did not come from running. Was this the answer? Very plainly but very far away he saw Puhlmann's terrified face above him, between him and the sky, the gray, dark sky. Puhlmann's bright, terrified face—what was the matter with him? What was the matter with him? And he heard Puhlmann's voice and then ceased to hear it, but read his lips saying: "Doctor! Doctor! My God! Doctor!" He wanted to say something, something very important, but what was it? He knew exactly what it was he wanted to say, but he couldn't say it, he knew the words he wanted to say but could not find them, yes, that was it, but what was it? "No, doctor! No! You mustn't, you mustn't! Please!" Puhlmann shouted, and looked wildly about him, and tears ran down his lined and hollow cheeks. "Help! Help!" he shouted. "Isn't there anybody here? Help! Help!"

Part II ELFIE

I "Are you glad I'm here?" said Dr. Karl Braun. "Yes, very," said Elfie. "Were you surprised?" "Silly—of course. How did you find me?" "Oh, that was easy. I just had to ask for the prettiest girl in Europe. Well, let's say, Germany." "Then you called up, and I came over at once. So I am— silly." "You're the loveliest, cleverest girl I know," he said, bending over and kissing her. "And why did you leave home?" "Why don't you ask why I came?" she said. After a pause she grew serious: "In times like these, when things are very bad and people don't know what tomorrow will bring, everybody tries to squeeze as much as possible out of life. Tomorrow or the day after or even in a few hours it may be over." "Stop thinking about what's going on outside," he said. She took no notice, and went on: "They say that nowadays girls throw themselves at completely strange men and perfectly respectable housewives commit adultery wholesale. And who shall blame them? they say. But I don't agree. Who really believes he's going to die tomorrow? People behave only as they have always wanted to behave. Why should a girl preserve her innocence when she's in love with a man? And married women . . . could one say people have lost their inhibitions in wartime?" "One could," said Karl. "Why should they remain unchanged when the whole world's crashing about their ears?" "Do you care so much about what people say?" he asked. "Everybody does." "I suppose so. . . . Did you always want to?" "What?" "Do this," he said. "Come to me." "Silly," she said tenderly. "Of course!" "I love you." "Only it has all been a bit too quick." "Much too slow. We've known each other for a whole month." "It may have been slow for you, but not for me. For me it was too quick, and too overwhelming. On my way here through the wood I kept telling myself how foolish I was. Why couldn't we meet somewhere else, anywhere but here, why did I have to come to your room in this inn where everybody knows me? But I came all the same. I decided we had no time to lose. What was going to happen in any case might as well happen soon. There's going to be a tomorrow for both of us, we both believe it, but we don't know whether there's going to be a tomorrow for both of us together." "Of course, there is," he said. "We're like two drops of water," she said, absent-mindedly stroking his hair. "Two drops of water that were going to flow together in any case. We both knew it. I knew it. But there's a war on, and we couldn't wait. The war helped it to happen more quickly; we had no time to lose, it

was like helping two drops of water to flow together. Now it has happened, and it has happened for always, even if there's no tomorrow. What can happen to us now?" "You might stop wanting to marry me. We are going to get married, aren't we? And there are plenty of other things that might happen. One can't live on memories alone." But she was not listening. "It's wrong to say that everything is bitterness and misery in times like these," she went on. "There's much more and much deeper bitterness and misery than usual, but there's more and deeper happiness, too. Yes, now. It may not last, and tomorrow bitterness and misery may return, but they can't be as dreadful as they were before, because we shall have had the present, and that will make tomorrow easier to bear." "That business with—" he began. "With my father, yes, you can finish the sentence, and a lot of other things besides." She looked into the candle flame, and her eyes were quiet and thoughtful and very far away. She was silent for a long time, and he gently stroked her with his forefinger from just under the ear, down her neck, and along her bare, sunburned shoulder, and down her arm to her elbow, and all the way back. And then he said consolingly: "Don't take it to heart so, you'll make up with him again." She seemed not to notice his touch, but suddenly she embraced him so violently that it hurt him, and she burst into tears. He tried to comfort her, but she shook her head, and after a time her sobbing ceased. Footsteps shuffled by outside the door; it was old Lorenzen, going up to his attic. "It's a long time since I've cried so," said Elfie, half-laughing again, though the tears were still streaming down her cheeks, and Karl felt strong and happy, because she had ceased to be the cool, self-assured, beautiful young woman she had been before and had turned into a pathetically helpless little girl who took refuge with him, was ashamed of her tears, but could not help them. "Lend me your handkerchief," she said. He wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, whispering words of consolation in the foolish language of lovers. "Am I silly?" she asked. "Very silly?" Yes, he murmured tenderly, she was terribly silly. She shouldn't cry, but if she thought she had to, then she should cry as long as she liked. Her body was soft and firm, her hands and knees were cool, and she smiled, and he said: "You smile like a toothpaste advertisement, only your teeth are whiter." She gently bit his lower lip, and her half-closed eyes were full of a lot of tiny little candle flames. He said: "You're not to say things like tomorrow it might be over." "I said perhaps." "You're not even to say perhaps." "No." "You're not even to think it." "No." Only one night, she said to herself; there'll probably never be another. They'll find me, here or somewhere else. Do you think you've hidden yourself? There's no hiding from them. I wanted this one night and I'll make myself believe that it isn't the last. You've got to believe it, you've got

to believe it. What will tomorrow bring? Will they come for you? You'll go home and wait, he'll take you home, and in the evening he'll come and see you, and perhaps it won't have been the last night after all. Perhaps . . . But you'll always be expecting them, waiting for them. O God, let them not find you here. Not here. Not here. "Ever since I've known you—" he murmured. "What?" "I've wanted this," he said. "You. I behaved terribly stupidly." "When?" "On the first evening I met you." "Yes, you did a bit," she said.

II The Doctor "I'm leaving, you needn't throw me out!" I said, and had a mighty fine opinion of myself. What an exit. Worthy of a barnstorming tragedian in a tenth-rate melodrama who has armed himself in advance with half a bottle of schnapps. The devil must have been riding me that evening. I behaved unpardonably—not because I wanted to offend the old gentlemen or Elfie's father, but because I blocked my way to Elfie with my outburst. Talking to the old gentlemen like that was pointless in any case. Nothing was to be gained by it, and I didn't even want to gain anything by it. They simply got on my nerves, I was tired and on edge, the wound was troubling me again, and, as so often happens in those circumstances, particularly when one has had too much to drink on an empty stomach, I talked too much. What a fuss I caused by what I said! If I had known, I would have kept mum the whole evening, or sung "Deutsch-land, Deutschland uber Alles" if they had wanted me to, or discussed the strategy and tactics of the Russian campaign with the general, or the philosophical background of the German Romantic movement with Elfie's father, and assured the old medical-corps general that every single advance in military surgery was due to him and his like. As a matter of fact, the evening had begun to go wrong several hours beforehand, during the late afternoon. At the military hospital I had made friends with Lieutenant Joachim von Brescow, who was one of my patients. lie had a complicated thigh wound that gave me a lot of trouble. We just managed to avoid amputation, and he made a very good recovery. My old professor—he was now a chief medical officer and had operated on my spine—operated on him four times, and he had to stay in bed with an extension cast for a very long time, and all in all he was one of those lucky "get better in spite of everything" cases of which every young doctor is proud. Joachim was a difficult patient, and our first personal contacts consisted of shouting violently at each other. His pithy, imaginative swearing earned my wholehearted respect, however; and he was astonishingly resourceful at smuggling in forbidden drinks. A whole staff of nurses was occupied in trying to stop him and to find out how he managed it, but in spite of all obstacles he had a never-ending supply of cognac, rum, or just plain plum brandy. You always had to count

on surprises when you went to see him. Once, having already got quite tight during the morning, he actually offered the professor a drink on his daily round. "You really must try this, professor," he said. "You simply can't get the stuff nowadays; it's gone out of circulation. Try it, it'll do you good." The professor's respectful escort of doctors and nurses was thunderstruck, and what happened next must have seemed like a miracle to them. The professor accepted the proffered bottle, poured himself a little, tasted and savored it with half-shut eyes, then did the same again, and finally said: "Not bad! Not bad at all I What annoys me is that one can't get barrels of the stuff, don't you agree, young man? I'll keep the bottle. Now and again one needs a little drink when one has to deal with heroes like you, who have been so busy fighting for their country that they've no time to learn manners. You have no objections, do you?" "Of course not, professor, of course not," Joachim stammered in dismay. Two days later the professor received a small case containing three bottles of old French cognac, with a card: "This time, I hope, you will have no cause to complain about the lack of a barrel. Respectfully yours, Lieutenant von Brescow." "I got the cognac from my uncle," Joachim confided to me later. "It was not easy, I assure you. I must show you his cellar sometime." "The professor gave a party, and we finished off two bottles. The matron got quite tight." "What? That old dragon? Throwing pearls before swine," + the lieutenant grumbled. "Is that why they've been treating me like this lately?" After he was discharged, we often saw each other, and made the rounds of a number of back rooms of certain obscure taverns to which only a few privileged people had entree. In the course of time boon companionship turned into friendship. But we always tried to avoid talking about the war, though of course we could not exclude it completely; it was too close for that. After I came off duty that evening we had a few glasses of schnapps in my room (it was an attic in the hospital), and Joachim, apparently upset after walking through the big ward, said: "When one thinks that in this building alone there are a lot of wards like that—how many hospitals are there in Germany and on the other side?" "Why?" "How many millions of those poor devils are there? It baffles the imagination. When you think of it all, and of the air raids, it's like the Apocalypse. In comparison with this, earlier wars were a joke. The Crimea, or 1870, was just child's play." "And the Thirty Years' War?" "Not to be compared with it. And just imagine what a future war will be like. They already have five-ton bombs. They'll end by inventing something, a death ray or a rocket or a bomb or something, with which it will be possible to wipe out a whole town or even a whole country. In comparison with what will happen in the future, the present war will seem to have been a harmless skirmish." "Nonsense," I said, probably more sharply than I intended. "Why?" "Because," I said, and for a moment I did not know what to say, but searched for words and arguments, which gradually occurred to me while I was speaking, "because it's just plain non-

sense. There's no difference between a frontier incident in which a single man is killed, a 'little' war in which ten thousand men are killed, or this war, in which millions are dying, and a future war, in which perhaps thousands of millions will die. The death of a single man is as bad as that of a million or a thousand million. You can't add up or multiply suffering; the suffering of one is the same as the suffering of a million. Terror and fear plus terror and fear, or terror and fear multiplied by a million, doesn't result in a million times more terror and fear, but remains just terror and fear. Dropping a bomb that wipes out a town or even a whole country is no better and no worse than smashing in the head of an enemy in close combat. A wounded man in this hospital is just the same as a whole hospital full of wounded men. There is no qualitative difference between one case and a hundred cases; there's only a quantitative difference, and that's an entirely secondary matter." "You're crazy," he said, staring at me as if he doubted my sanity. I was surprised myself at what I had said. Where had it all come from? Why had I suddenly said things that I had never consciously thought? We went on arguing at supper in a tavern. We ended by getting quite heated, and he suggested that we should make things up over a glass of good wine. "That's a first-rate idea," I said. "But where?" "At my uncle's," he said. "Haven't I told you about his cellar? He has an estate—that and a house here in Cologne were all that was left when his brother lost the family fortune. Fraudulent bankruptcy, blew his brains out rather than face the music. Actually it was all bound up with the 1929 crisis, it happened at about that time. My cousin, Elfie, is really a remarkable person. Beautiful, as cool as a cucumber, at any rate, that's what she looks like, and highly intelligent—she's a little too highly intelligent for me." "Married?" "No. Has a lot of admirers. You can have a shot at her yourself; I give you my blessing. But take care you don't get your knuckles rapped." So we took the street car to the edge of the city, where Joachim's uncle, Wilhelm von Carsten, lived with his daughter and an old housekeeper. We were both ready to round off the evening with a bottle of wine, or perhaps two, and I was also more than half ready for a small adventure. Why not meet a "well-connected" young woman for once? I had grown rather tired of the little nurses at the hospital, though some of them were quite pretty; I didn't complain at some of them being rather too easy, though a lot of them behaved as if the end of the world was at hand and drew the conclusion that they must get as much as possible out of life, or what they took to be life, in the meantime. But if a girl was too easy, you inevitably dismissed her as being like that with everybody; if she was too difficult, you began to be afraid of involvement and complications, and sheered off. Sometimes I wondered whether anything was wrong with me. Had I become incapable of real feeling for a girl or a young woman? Had I become incapable of anything but desire? Did I admire myself in the role of cynic, toying with experiences which would obviously end by turning me into an incurably self-centered egoist? But, hell, I said to myself, what did it matter? I did not want to expose myself again—what had I got out of it but an injured spine? I proposed to make life as agreeable as possible. If I needed a woman, I'd take one. If I thought she was getting

too dependent, I'd get rid of her before she became a nuisance. I wanted peace. Hadn't I earned it? Supposing I did get my knuckles rapped? Would it matter? Why not take the risk? And in any case, perhaps I wouldn't get them rapped. Elfie opened the door, and when I saw her in the soft light of the entrance hall my complacent, adolescent philosophy collapsed like a house of cards. I had no more thought of "having a shot" at her. It struck me like a blow. Never before had I had that feeling so strongly, though the first sight of a woman had often put me off my stroke. She was nearly as tall as I. Her soft, shiny, silky hair was combed into a bun on top of her head, her big, slightly oblique eyes seemed sometimes almost black and sometimes green. Sometimes they were like a deep lake surrounded by woods and then, when she turned her head slightly, they turned light green and sparkling like a mountain stream. She had a full mouth, and there was a great deal of character in her almost too thick lower lip; and a slight smile lingered almost perpetually about the corners of her mouth. Her nose was straight, as if carved out of stone. But it was not only her beauty that affected me. Can one describe the effect of a first meeting? At that time I was living entirely among illness, wounds, disease, and pain. I myself was one of my own wounded, plagued by pain as they were, and even the nurses who came to my attic, no matter how strong and healthy they were, bore the mark of their environment. We were all marked by it, but here was a young woman who was not marked, who was the embodiment of my longing for health, for a world in which there was no pain, no wounds, a young woman whose mere presence made me forget the abyss of suffering in which I spent my days. She was not a girl whom one could "have a shot at." She was a woman to conquer and possess, if necessary even at the price of surrendering oneself. Joachim introduced me in his turbulent fashion. I noticed that she was not too pleased at our unexpected visit. She told Joachim for heaven's sake not to make such a row, because her father had visitors, it was one of his Thursday evenings, and I asked whether it wouldn't be better if we went away. "Since you are here, you may as well come in," she said, and preceded us into the hall. She moved with the natural grace of a beautiful animal, held herself very erect, and was gentle and agile. The hall was big, and exuded the elegance of many generations of prosperity. But I saw everything through a thin, invisible veil. Everything was only a part of her. It was she who dictated the atmosphere, and it would have made no difference if I had met her in a poverty-stricken hovel or the complicated magnificence of a baroque castle. One sometimes has the same experience at the theater, when a great actress appears. The scenery becomes unimportant, the sham world of the stage becomes reality, everything is dominated by the woman's personality. Later, in the library, she retired into the background as only strong personalities can, paradoxical though that may seem. I think that was why I stepped out of my role and behaved in a way that closed the doors of the house to me for the future.

Elfie

My cousin Joachim, the son of one of my mother's brothers, brought him to the house. In his noisy, boisterous way Joachim burst into the middle of one of my father's Thursday evenings; on Thursdays he always had a few friends in to "solve the problems of the world," as our old housekeeper Therese used to say. Joachim knew all about those Thursday evenings; he sometimes had come to them himself, but that evening he had characteristically forgotten all about them. Father was normally very hospitable, but he didn't like strangers to turn up on his Thursday evenings. "You have to be able to speak out from time to time to get rid of your bile," he said. "It's seldom enough that you get the chance of doing that nowadays, and it's possible only among old friends, men you can rely on and whose views you know." Well, it was impossible to be angry with Joachim, who's just an overgrown schoolboy, childish and harmless in spite of his war decorations, and always getting into trouble. I don't believe that any other lieutenant in the German Army has so often been confined to quarters. "Where I am, things happen. I can't understand why it makes people so angry," he always said. He put his arms around me, gave me two resounding kisses 141 on both cheeks, threw his hat elegantly and with unerring aim to its right place on the hatstand (he had practiced this for hours during the holidays when he was a schoolboy), and then said: "This, my dear cousin, is my friend and sawbones Dr. Karl Braun—like the uniform of our friends, but only in name. Apart from that, he's a damned butcher, who took not the slightest notice of the way I yelled while he poked about my leg. And he can drink almost more than I. And this"— he went on, pushing me forward—"is my little cousin Elfie von Carsten, known for short as Monkey, and sometimes also as Siegfried's Doom, because of her blonde mane. Beautiful, isn't she?" He was simply impossible. "Hush," I said. "Can't you be a little quieter?" "Why?" he shouted. "What's up?" "It's Thursday." "So it is. I'd forgotten all about it. Never mind, can't two tired warriors get a glass of wine all the same?" "Thirsty warriors, you mean, neither of you looks very tired to me." "I'm sorry to have come at such an inconvenient moment," the doctor said in embarrassment. He looked unhappy and at a loss, standing there with his hat in his hand, but not very unhappy; he was not taking it too much to heart. I don't think he was quite sober either. Heaven knows what the two of them had been up to. They certainly hadn't been to the best places, and they had certainly had more than one schnapps each. "Well, as long as you're here, you might as well come in," I said. "You're an angel," Joachim bellowed at the top of his lungs, and then said to his friend: "She knows you already. She had to give me a cup of coffee after we celebrated your promotion to captain." "At seven o'clock in the morning," I said.

"Yes, I remember the occasion, though not very distinctly. He left unusually early," the doctor said. I looked at him more closely. He was tall, nearly as tall as Joachim, a smile hovered about the corners of his mouth, his face was haggard, there were bluish lines under the cheekbones, and he had deep-set, nearly black eyes. The door of the library opened. "Who is it, Elfie?" my father called. "Joachim and—" "Oh?" Father came out, looked at the stranger, and involuntarily frowned. "Oh, it's you—don't you know—" "Allow me to introduce the man who patched me up," said Joachim, ignoring father's irritation and discourtesy. I saw a shadow flicker over the doctor's face, and for a moment I was afraid he was going to walk out. It was the vague feeling of disappointment you have sometimes when you have met a person for the first time and he leaves before you have made his acquaintance properly. Later I wondered whether my father's coolness was responsible for what happened afterward, because the doctor was not the kind of man who forces his company on anyone. The frown disappeared from my father's brow. "Delighted, I assure you," he said. "I think we met briefly once at the hospital. Joachim has told me a great deal about you." "Actually, it's a piece of good fortune that we happened to drop in on one of your 'evenings,' " Joachim said. "Sawbones and I will undoubtedly be an invaluable addition to the illustrious company. On the other hand, if you prefer it, we can stay outside and sing duets to a bottle of wine. But you must give Elfie permission to come and provide the accompaniment. Her future admirer here—" "Joachim!" I exclaimed. "Calm yourself, my dear," he said. "There's no man of whom I have a higher—" "Come in," my father said. "Though I'm not at all sure that you, Joachim, are going to be a valuable addition to the company. Elfie, please join us and bring two more glasses." The fact that father invited me into the library meant that he was not totally reconciled to our two unexpected guests. Usually the men remained alone and I did not join them, though father sometimes said that perhaps it would be a good thing if a woman were present; it might make some of his guests express themselves less violently instead of mistaking a loud voice for a convincing argument, as happened so often nowadays. There was hardly anything that father disliked more than raised voices, dramatic gestures, and shouted arguments that were no real arguments at all; this had put him against the Nazis from the beginning, and his opposition was accordingly devoid of striking gestures. During the past few years in particular he had quietly and contemptuously retired from public life, and as far as possible avoided all contact with the "new" regime. On this occasion there were six men in the library besides father. The first was Professor Heinrich Ringelen, or Uncle Heinrich, as I used to call him, who had been a regular visitor at our house for thirty years. He was a kindly, elderly man. His red, round face and his head of hair, which had now become as white as snow, and his bald patch were one of my earliest childhood memories.

The second was Friedrich von Ahrens, a retired general, a heavy, choleric man with a massive head and a severe expression, who could not get over the fact that for years past the regime had shown a complete lack of interest in employing him. I think that that was his only reason for disliking it. Arnold von Liszt was a cultured, hook-nosed man, with sharp features and an ironic tongue, which for preference he exercised at the expense of the heavy-footed general. As he came from a prosperous family, he had, as he said himself, never had to work in his life. He claimed that circumstances alone had prevented him from becoming an embittered man, though he was of the opinion that he had good reason to be one. "Work spoils the character, but organized leisure purifies it," he used to say. There were only three things that he hated: (1) the French, who during the First World War had unpardonably shot off his arm; (2) some unfortunate inclinations that had also troubled his namesake, the composer ("but one does not talk about that sort of thing to little girls"); and (3) the Nazis, who had forced him to become an air-raid warden, i.e., had inflicted on him an extremely disagreeable duty. For these reasons, he said, he hated the French, his composer-namesake and his noisy music ("No, no, for heaven's sake, I'm not even remotely related to him"), and the Nazis, all three alike. The fourth man was Harms Rehwinkel, a former senior burgomaster who had been retired by the Nazis. He was a small, lively, energetic man, who had been a leading member of the Center party in the days of the Weimar Republic. He suffered just as much as the general did under his enforced inactivity, and I believe that if the Nazis had offered him employment he would have seized it with both hands. Then there was Professor Peter Winkel, a retired chief medical officer, a noisy, goodhearted, and uncomplicated man who had relished father's wine cellar for many years. He was a mighty drinker in the eyes of the Lord, and in his own words he consisted of three organs—brain, heart, and liver. Von Liszt's comment was that the order should be reversed; then they would be in order of size. The sixth and most remarkable of our guests, though also the quietest and least conspicuous, was Rainer Gewaldt, a man of fifty-four whom the others jokingly called their Benjamin. He had a hard, handsome face and bright eyes under bushy brows. Though a major on the active list, he always wore civilian clothes. Mostly he sat listening to the others; but, when he did say something, it sounded authoritative and final; it always reminded me of putting a full stop at the end of a sentence that had grown too long. He was said to be connected with Admiral Canaris, or even to work in his office. At one time I thought I was a tiny bit in love with him, though I don't think he noticed it, or perhaps he didn't want to notice it, which was of course far worse. This, then, was the company into which the young doctor was introduced. All of them were long-standing family friends, and all of them—except the quiet major—had known my father before the Nazi period, and all of them had become practically members of the household and were regular visitors on my father's Thursday evenings. "I'm glad you've come, my young friend," said Professor Winkel cordially when the doctor was introduced to him. "I was just trying to explain to these ignorant people why a high-velocity bullet causes far more serious wounds than a low-velocity bullet. They think that because of its high velocity it simply goes straight through you, and that's all. You explain to them what happens. They won't take my word for it."

"Do you come straight from out there?" the general asked. "How do things look now?" "I haven't been there for a long time," said the doctor. Hospital, convalescent leave, and now I'm working with Professor Strauss." "Strauss? A very good man," said Professor Winkel. "He knows a great deal about schnapps," said Joachim. "All doctors do. Don't you?" said Professor Winkel, with a loud laugh. "He'l! learn," Joachim said. "Convalescent leave?" the general said. "Were you wounded?" "Yes." "Where were you hit, my young friend?" asked Professor Winkel. "Oh, it wasn't too bad." "Shed his blood for the fatherland," said Joachim. "Let him sit down before bombarding him with questions," said my father. He pulled over a chair; and, when the doctor passed me, I noticed for the first time that he walked with a slight limp. When I put a glass in front of him he smiled at me as if we were old friends and accomplices; this irritated me slightly; I thought it rather too ingratiating, but now I realize that he was only trying to hide his shyness. "How long have you been back home?" asked the general. "Almost exactly a year." "Uncle, I could really kiss you because of your wine. May I have a glass?" said Joachim. My father smiled. "Since when have you had any inhibitions?" he said. "I'm always on my best behavior in this house," said Joachim. "Your health! Come, old warrior, drink!" This last was meant for the doctor. "Where were you?" the general asked. "Russia?" The doctor nodded. "Which sector?" "Central." "A year ago—it was Kluge then, wasn't it?" "I'm not sure," the doctor said hesitantly. "It may have been Manstein." The general looked at him with knitted brows and relapsed into one of his sulky silences—but only for a short time. It was impossible to take any interest in a young medical officer who didn't even know who his commande-in-chief had been. "It was Field Marshal von Kluge, very close to von Man-stein's army group," said Joachim. "We were both involved in the celebrated fiasco known as Operation Citadel. We were only ten or twelve miles apart. I was in the crack Grossdeutschland Division and he was in an ordinary field division, but, God, how we all ran!" "The whole operation was badly bungled," said the general. "Very likely," said Joachim. "At the beginning it all went beautifully and we gained a lot of ground." "Tell me an operation that wasn't bungled, general," said von Liszt. "But please, I ask you!" exclaimed the general. "The beginning of the war perhaps?" said von Liszt.

"There were a whole lot of brilliantly successful operations," said the general. "Not that no mistakes were made, of course; things happened that could have been avoided. But all the same they were successful; and, as I said, they were brilliantly conducted." "You must look at everything in its context," said von Liszt. "How can you say they were brilliantly successful when all they led to was a state of affairs in which it was necessary to make me an air-raid warden? Me! No operation in the world can be regarded as having been brilliantly conducted when the outcome was my becoming an air raid warden. Don't you agree with me?" He laughed maliciously. He was obviously trying to infuriate the general again, and he succeeded. "I take no interest in politics nowadays. The Fritsch case was enough for me," the general said angrily. "When I talk of an operation, I look at it from a strictly military point of view. I'm also perfectly aware of your total uselessness as an air-raid warden." "There is no such thing as a purely military point of view, my dear general," said von Liszt. "I'm not your dear general." "General, I must say I agree with you," said Joachim. "There is such a thing as a military point of view. It's that the loveliest flowers grow on dungheaps. I've often noticed it." "Very good!" said the general. "I'm no more reconciled to the dungheap than you are, my dear air-raid warden. But you won't convince me that it and its stink affect the traditional soldierly virtues. Loyalty, valor, discipline, comradeship." With each of these words he rapped the table with his knuckles. "Who can deny that? It was those soldierly virtues that enabled an imaginative and carefully calculating leadership to gain its great successes. This so-called New Order has made no difference to the German soldier. The German soldier is what he always has been. What is wrong is that certain methods have recently infiltrated into the General Staff that were unknown to us in the old days. Think of Keitel. I ask you! Or Paulus. A weakling! (His voice sounded bitter.) The army's duty is to serve the nation, but it must remain unpolitical. These new 'political' officers—Model, for instance—when I think of the leading commanders of the present time—even Guderian and Rommel have given in. No stuffing in them. Weaklings!" "My dear general, you contradict yourself," said von Liszt "Not as far as I know." "No such problems existed in the old days," said Uncle Heinrich. "That's just the point," said von Liszt. "The fronts were clearly defined, and one knew where one stood and what one had to do," said Professor Winkel. The general said: "War was clean and—well!" "Quite right," said Rehwinkel. "I remember the beginning of the First World War as if it were yesterday. Later things got very bad—I was wounded twice before Verdun, for instance. I was a lieutenant, and was in command of a company (he said this to the doctor, who was listening in silence), but in those days we had never heard of the problems that haunt people's minds today." "The trouble began later," said the general. "When the army became political?" said von Liszt. "You have said it," said the general.

"Whether the army's political or unpolitical, I know a lot of people who'll say after the war that it was the happiest time of their lives," said Joachim. "The Reichswehr was of course very unpolitical," said von Liszt. "The Reichswehr had other things to do than police duties. I said the trouble began later," said the general. "If the Reichswehr had been political," said von Liszt, "if it had worked to uphold the existing order, for instance, I shouldn't be an air-raid warden now." "It isn't doing you any harm," said the general. "During the First World War I was adjutant to the general's battalion," my father said to the doctor. "Oh, well!" said the general. "Those were the days!" "Yes," said von Liszt. "The French shot with beans, didn't they?" "Everything depends on shooting at the right moment, after carrying out the correct troop movements," the general said. "War is higher mathematics. The calculation of probabilities. That's something that nowadays seems to have been forgotten. How else is one to explain the defeats of the past two years? Operation Citadel, which we were discussing just now, and which our young friend here (he looked at Joachim; he seemed to have no eyes for the doctor) took part in, for instance, was completely bungled, in both planning and execution. What large-scale movements have we seen recently? Von Manstein, of whom I have a very high opinion, should have been given the opportunity to operate independently. But he, and von Kluge, and all the other commanders, have been reduced to the status of mere receivers of orders. I discussed this with Haider, and he was compelled to admit that I was right. Think of the frightful disaster in Africa—and now Italy. I ask you—a Luftwaffe officer as commander in chief!" "At any rate, that's better than a corporal," said Joachim. "I only hope that things go better in Normandy," said the general, "though a number of mistakes have been allowed to happen there. Rundstedt's a good man, of course, but I don't believe he's capable of doing what is necessary. What do you think about it at the front?" "At the front we don't think at all," said Joachim. "We just fight." "That's something that our troops have always been very good at," said the general. "But the leadership, I ask you, what can a corporal know about the art of war? Let me tell you—in the most complete confidence, of course—that Guderian complained bitterly to me about the way his hands were tied. Wasn't that why his predecessors resigned? Wrong people in the wrong place. Incompetents are put in high command, and the competent and gifted are given the goby." "Or pensioned off," said von Liszt. "Or pensioned off," the general went on with emphasis. "I assure you, gentlemen, that if leadership had not got into the hands of the amateurs, this war would long since have ended in our favor. At any rate, in the east. It should have been the task of the political leadership to reach an agreement with Britain and America. As it is, however, and unless things change, I foresee a whole series of terrible defeats. There are still possibilities—but otherwise we shall lose the war." "But, general—" said Joachim. "And why shall we lose the war? Only because laymen and amateurs are playing at war." "You mean that if the right people—"

"You'd see that many things would be different. It's only the supreme leadership that is indicted by the events of the past two years. The German soldier has always fought bravely. There's no reflection on him." "But I've often seen him run." "Whom?" "The German soldier." "If the German soldier runs, it means that there's something wrong with the leadership. My soldiers never ran—or if they did, it was forward." "Except outside Paris," my father said, with a slight smile. "That wasn't our fault. I remember—" said the burgomaster. "Well, I don't know," said Joachim. "I've seen a general trying to stop a retreat with a submachine gun in his hands. The men simply ran straight past him without taking any notice." "A general who allows things to get to that pass is a bad general." "Do you remember that place north of Paris—what was its name?—in the spring of 1918?" said my father. "And what of it?" said the general. "We brought the situation under control again, didn't we? Well, then! It was the same when the British broke through with their tanks. After three days we found out how to deal with the things, and that wiped the smile off their faces." They went on talking, refreshed their memories, sometimes squabbled—and at heart they were all very much in agreement. Joachim told a story about his experiences in Russia, something about a little muzhik who worked in the daytime for the Germans and at night was a partisan leader. In the end he was found out by the company cook and dispatched with a cookhouse ladle. This story was capped by others; they all started talking at the same time, and there was much laughter. I kept looking at the doctor. He kept on drinking, and Joachim refilled his glass whenever it was empty. He seemed to have something on his mind. His face was even paler than when he came in, and there was a restless look in his eyes. Once he slowly and cautiously sat upright and pressed together his lips as people do when they are in pain. During one of the pauses in the conversation my father turned to him and said: “You're very quiet." "That has struck me too," said Professor Winkel. "Haven't you got anything to tell us? You must certainly have had a lot of interesting experiences." "Come on, young man, it's time you told us something," the general said patronizingly. "What am I to tell you?" the doctor said slowly, without looking up. "Experiences? Of course, I've had experiences. I've bandaged up a whole lot of infantrymen and cut open a whole lot of boils. And made the acquaintance of Sergeant Fink and Lieutenant von Andres—he used to laugh at himself and everyone else, and he carried a big winding sheet about with him, and we buried him in it. That was what he intended it for. Also," he looked thoughtfully at one face after the other, though without seeing them properly— "I once saw two corpses swimming behind a boat—no, that's wrong, one corpse was in the boat and the other was being towed along behind it. Yes, and then there was Grenadier Kaiser, who went mad, and the general gave him the Iron

Cross Class I, and later I had to amputate the general's leg while he polished his glasses; he was a brave man. It was certainly not his fault that we had to retreat." "Whose fault was it then?" asked the general. 'The others' of course." "Who? What others?" the general asked sharply. "A stupid question: the Russians, who else?" replied the doctor. There was a painful silence. Joachim smiled broadly, and hid his face behind his hand. My father looked at Professor Winkel with raised eyebrows. I knew that look. The general sat as if turned to stone, and slowly his face became scarlet. Eventually the professor coughed and said: "But, my dear young friend, must you be so aggressive straight away? I myself had four years' experience of active service, and now I am continually dealing with wounded again. I don't know what experiences you have had, but I must say I agree with the general. We have always done our duty, for our people and our fatherland, as the saying goes, and so have all other good Germans, who are all good patriots. You will have noticed that none of us here are blind supporters of the regime. But what we are fighting for today is in the last analysis not the present regime, but Germany. Let us be quite clear about that. We are fighting for Germany." "Quite right," said the general and nodded. The doctor raised his glass, looked at the wine, sipped it, and put it down again. When I saw the look in his eyes I tried to signal to Joachim to do something, tell a funny story—anything to relieve the tension instead of aggravating it as the professor had obviously done. And then I wanted Joachim to get the doctor out of the house quickly, for in his blazing eyes I saw disaster looming. He was drunk, but something else besides. But Joachim noticed nothing. He leaned forward eagerly and looked at the doctor, who wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, threw his head back, and slowly began to speak. His words fell into the silence like lumps of hot metal; and, though he was speaking to us, he seemed to be somewhere else, far away in a world to which none of us had access. "You ask me whether we're fighting for the regime or for the fatherland, but that's something I know nothing about. What is the fatherland? I think it would be better if men had only themselves, and no fatherland or mother country. No, we are not Nazis, we are just patriots. But the Nazis are patriots, too. We are fighting for the fatherland, and so are the Nazis. We are all tugging at the same rope and, as the Nazis are in control of the fatherland, or govern it, or dominate, or whatever you will, we are fighting for them, or are we not? We are all patriots, we and they alike. More wars have been caused and more men killed by patriotism than you can possibly count. Our enemies are patriots, too. German patriots kill French patriots, and vice versa, in the name of their country, and the greater their patriotism the greater pleasure they take in killing each other. German patriots do their duty to their people and their fatherland, Russian patriots do the same, and so do British patriots, and American patriots, and Zulu patriots, and Congolese patriots, and Chinese patriots fighting Japanese patriots—all in the name of their country. I want none of that kind of patriotism. I want no country if for its sake I have to fight other countries and their patriots. I want no country whatever, because every country demands the same of its patriots. And you are the prophets of this murderous patriotism." He leaned forward and looked around the circle of faces.

"Now you tell me something; you've certainly had plenty of interesting experiences. Those were the times, outside Paris, when we beat up the French for the sake of the fatherland. Hurrah! Let's give it to him, the dirty French patriot, kill the dirty swine. The German soldier always does his duty; he's a patriot. And if we lose the war—" "Please!" said my father, raising his voice, but the doctor raised his hand in a way that made my father fall silent. "If we lose the war, it will be the fault of the Supreme Command, but not, of course, the German soldier. Later we can always have another try. Perhaps next time it will come off—no sacrifice is too great for the fatherland. You, gentlemen, are the prophets of war—educated, sensitive, and highly cultivated prophets, I admit. But you are just as dangerous, or even more dangerous, than the beer swillers in the tavern around the corner talking about the war out of which they arose. There are no better propagandists for war than people like you, not even Goebbels. You're just the same as the men in the taverns talking about the war they've been through—no, they certainly don't want another war, because war is hell—dirt and death and mutilation, and idiotic superiors and painful wounds—'I got it here, it's a thick scar, isn't it?'—and thirst and hunger and disease and lice—'They practically ate us alive, my shirt walked by itself when I put it down'—and strategy and tactics and leadership—'My soldiers never ran away' or 'Do you remember, gentlemen, outside Paris?' The moral drawn from all this, of course, is no more war, and it's honestly meant, of course, in most cases, though sometimes it isn't; sometimes it's pure humbug, because it's an experience they wouldn't have missed for anything. Aren't they proud of what they went through and of their Iron Crosses? In comparison with the attractiveness of weapons, dirt, blood, thirst, hunger, and the scar on your chest or your arm or your leg, and the ribbon on your chest, slogans like 'No more war' or 'War is hell' cut no ice at all. And, for those who haven't experienced it, war means getting away from nagging womenfolk, being able to take a girl when you can get her without having to worry about the consequences, being sent all over the place and seeing the world, and getting decorated for it into the bargain. Why, it's a real man's life, isn't it? War's the great gamble, the great adventure, the great escape from ordinary everyday life, and what you get from it is the huge recompense of having been through it and surviving. Are you not the obvious demonstration that such a thing is possible? War offers an escape from the inhibitions of ordinary life. No, the truth of the matter is that we do not fight for the fatherland because we are patriots. That's just the excuse. We make war because we've got to try it, experience it, see it, find out about it for ourselves. The inquisitiveness of the child that causes it to burn its finger in the fire leads ultimately to a lot of adults dying for some village or molehill or clump of bushes somewhere in Russia. You don't die for the fatherland, for ideas, or for freedom. Only naive fools believe that. You die because you're unlucky, because you're a loser in the great gamble of war." He dropped his voice, and spoke so quietly that his words were almost inaudible, and with such sadness that it touched my heart. "The truth of the matter," he went on, "is that war is not just escape from ordinary life; it's the supreme dramatization of ordinary life, just as a child's burning its fingers is one of its minor dramatizations. Children go on being warned about burning their fingers in the fire and adults go on being warned about war, but nobody is ever deterred by the warnings, and that is why there will always be wars. Man is a gambler, and people like you are the aiders and abetters. You are the tempters who press the cards into the novice's hand

and give him the excuse he wants to justify him in trying his luck. The excuse is patriotism, duty, the fatherland's gratitude to its soldier sons, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." Then he added with contempt in his voice: "You are blind and foolish prophets." He rose to his feet. "I'm leaving, you needn't throw me out!" he said. "Forgive me if I—" He muttered something, hesitated, and pressed his lips together as if he were in severe pain. Joachim jumped up to hold him under the arm, but he brushed him aside. Then he looked at me, opened his mouth as if about to say something, but ended by bowing and saying nothing. Slowly he walked toward the door, limping more than he had done previously. "Joachim, please accompany the gentleman to the door," my father said coldly and quietly.

III "And here," said Elfie, "we have the brow. A thinker's brow, high and smooth. What goes on behind it, I wonder? Are you a thinker? And here we have the eyes. Sometimes they're quite golden, as they are now, and sometimes they're quite dark. That's when you get angry. Have^a lot of girls told you that?" "Thousands," he said. "Don't be funny! And here we have the nose. I'm afraid the nose is not handsome in the least. Actually it's quite crooked. Were you ever a boxer? And here's the mouth. Smile. A little more, please—no, not too much, you're only gritting your teeth. Ah! That's much better! When did you last shave?" "This morning." "You're quite stubbly." With the tips of her fingers she stroked his brow, his eyes, his nose, his mouth and chin, and her eyes followed her fingers, and she blew away the strands of hair that fell over her cheek, and the skin of her face was golden-brown and smooth and firm, her knees were round and slender, she opened her thighs when he put his knee between them, her face was under his and was ready and expectant and a tiny bit anxious, her eyes were half-closed and were lost somewhere, they were very dark, her lips moved but she said nothing, and then she bit his lower lip, looked at him, sunk in herself and in him and in their two bodies, a long way away and yet here, a woman in love. She stroked his hair and wept, though not in the same way as she had done before. "I don't know what's the matter with me, I'm crying again, I'm so silly and happy, I think I'm going to faint. Lend me your handkerchief," she said. "No," he said, and kissed her cheeks and eyes dry. Then said: "Now tell me what happened." "Not now," she said. "I don't want to talk. I love you." He was lying beside her, and she put her arm in his and carefully stroked the big scar on his back, so carefully that he hardly felt it. "Is it very painful?" she asked. "Not now." "Will you tell me about it sometime?" "Yes."

"Not now?" "No, not now." "Was it very painful when you were hit?" "No, that came later. Puhlmann got me out." "Who's Puhlmann?" "A brave little man with a clubfoot." "Where is he now?" "He's dead." Silently she stroked his scar, and he said to himself that sometime he would tell her, but not till he was sure he would not have to go back. If he had to go back again, he would tell her only when he had returned for good and the war was over. He would marry her, and then he would tell her everything.

IV The Doctor Sometime the nightmare was interrupted by intervals of deep unconsciousness and sometimes by intervals when I was free of pain and saw everything crystal-clear. It began when I saw Puhlmann's face over me, looked into his startled eyes, and heard his voice coming from very far away, saying: "Doctor! Doctor! Oh, God! Doctor!" I wanted to say something, something very important, it seemed to me at the time, but I did not know what it was or, rather, I knew what it was but the words eluded me. Then I wanted to tell him that it wasn't so bad, I only wanted to be left lying there for a bit, there was no reason for him to be so upset—because I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks and knew that it was because of me. But I couldn't speak, I hadn't the strength, and before I lost consciousness I heard him shouting for help, but I couldn't see him, and his voice was so faint and distant that I could hardly hear. When I awoke I was lying in a cart. I only realized that later, of course. At first I was aware of nothing but pain; it was so fierce that it seemed unreal. I heard myself groaning, and then screaming. I told myself not to scream, and managed to keep my mouth shut. I lay like that for a long time, aware of nothing but pain, and only gradually did I manage to take in my surroundings. I was lying on my side. It was raining. I could feel the patter of the raindrops on my painful skin. The cart was standing still. Immediately in front of my eyes a long, pointed bit of wet, glistening straw was sticking up through the blanket on which I was lying. A little farther away there was a strange haversack. To the left of it my instrument bag. It took me quite a time to recognize it. Then the pain got hold of me again; I shut my eyes and tried not to groan. I did not altogether succeed. I could not discover where the pain came from, it was everywhere. Not till I remem-

bered the blow on my side and back did I realize where I had been wounded and where the pain came from—and also realized the fact that I was wounded. I heard a voice, but did not know for a moment that it was talking to me, and I did not recognize it; it seemed a strange voice, just as my bag seemed strange to me at first. Only when I connected the intonation with what Puhlmann had said just before I lost consciousness (which seemed to have happened only a few moments before, though it might just as well have been weeks, or a whole eternity), did I realize that the voice was Puhlmann's. I opened my eyes and turned slightly in the direction from which it came. Puhlmann's face was bending over the haversack. His eyes were anxious and inquiring. "I'm glad you've come round, sir." "Where was I hit?" He bent lower to hear what I said. I saw his lips saying: "Back and hips." "Is it serious?" "Not too bad, sir, though it's bound to be painful." He was obviously lying. I had been foolish enough to ask the question the wounded always asked, and he had told me what he had so often heard me tell others. The extraordinary thing was that, though I knew he was lying, I was ready to believe him. "Really," he said. "I think it's just a bad flesh wound." Sooner or later I was bound to find out, I said to myself, and started moving my hands and then my arms, though I knew that nothing was wrong with them. I wanted to put off the evil moment. Puhlmann watched me tensely. Moving my hands and arms did not make the pain worse. Then I lay still for a time, and Puhlmann said: "Don't worry, sir, we'll soon be at the dressing station." "Where?" He mentioned a strange Russian name. I collected all my strength, tried to move my leg, and screamed with pain. I noticed that the leg did not move, or the blanket over it either. "I'll give you a shot," I heard Puhlmann's voice saying. It was very far away again and almost unintelligible behind the raging pain.

When I came round again, the cart was moving. I thought I should be unable to bear the pain any longer and tried but failed to sink back into the welcome darkness from which I had emerged. It was still raining. Black clouds chased across the sky beneath a layer of still, solid, motionless clouds above. The wheels of the cart squelched through the mud, and the sound of squelching footsteps came from beside it. I raised my head and saw Puhlmann's hand resting on the side of the cart, and a little later I saw the face under the cap, that was far too big for him. His hand was bony, skinny, and grimy, and his face terribly thin and fallen in. His nose was yellow and pointed, and raindrops were trickling down it and down his cheeks and the thick stubble on them, which was longer than it had been before. And then I had the first pain-free interval. It came as such a surprise that at first I could not believe it. The pain vanished as suddenly as if someone had switched it off.

I said to myself that it was probably my spine. A long time must have passed, because Puhlmann's beard was at least two days older than it had been before. "Puhlmann!" I called out. He did not hear. "Puhlmann!" I called out again as loud as I could. He started, looked at me, and tried to smile. His face came nearer, bent over the side of the creaking, rattling cart, and I was able to lay my head back on the blanket again. "Where are we?" I asked. "It's not far now." His voice was very tired. "Are you in pain?" "No, not now. How long have I been unconscious?" He thought for a moment, and then said: "Two or three days. Two, I think." "No dressing station?" He shook his head. "Where are we?" "We're going westward. Where? If only one knew in this damned country. It's all the same everywhere." His head vanished again and all I could see was his white hand and angular, protruding knuckles. His face reappeared. "I've been looking after you myself," he said. "I had a good teacher, didn't I?" He tried to smile, but looked dreadful. I felt sorry for him, though I could not have said why. What had been happening while I was unconscious? "And how does it look?" "Not so bad," he said. His face vanished again, and this time his hand vanished too. After a time the pain came back. It took possession of me in waves, long, mounting waves in which I drowned, however much I fought against them. I drowned in the nightmare. Above me was a box next to the haversack, what was in it? Where was my bag? Pain, rain, a damp, sour, horse smell about the blanket, where had Puhlmann got a horse? Where were we? Going west, a beaten army, Napoleon, the Berezina, fortunately it wasn't winter, no snow and ice, would the pain never stop? God, Jesus, mother, Puhlmann, help! No, it would never stop, it always came back. I'd cheerfully sell my soul to the devil if he'd only take the pain away. Footsteps next to the cart, one after the other, more footsteps, dirt, rain, on and on. This time I did not lose consciousness. Later Puhlmann's knowing, inquiring face appeared over the edge of the cart again. We stopped, he clambered up and gave me a shot, and I did not dare open my mouth to ask him where he had got it. Then I dared, and actually I managed to speak without screaming. "Where did you get the stuff?" "I had a small strategic reserve." "How much have you got left?" "None," he said. "This is the last." Even then unconsciousness did not come. The pain retreated a little before the twilight state into which I sank after the injection and the strange thoughts that buzzed through my mind like a swarm of bees. Then I must have gone to sleep for a while and the cart was stationary again. It grew dark; thick, motionless foliage was over my head, and the pain was not too bad. "Thank God the rain's stopped," said a rather hoarse voice.

"It's a week since the sergeant produced those pork chops for us," said another voice. "No, ten days," said the first voice. "It was his parting gift." "He was a shit, but at least we were never hungry when we were with him." "Well, we're making up for it now." "Where the hell could we scrounge something to eat?" "Shut up, you fool; talking about it only makes it worse." "Haven't you got a fag end at least?" "Don't be silly! Where would I get a thing like that?" "I once read somewhere that it's possible to live for nearly a month without food." "Four days are enough for me." "Without anything to drink you last for only four or five or six days." "Without schnapps, you mean?" "Without water, you idiot!" "We've got too much water." "It's brackish." "What would you say if—" "If what?" "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking." "What?" "We could kill the horse." "You're crazy."' "Better than nothing." "But what about—him?" There was a silence. "He's done for anyway," said the first voice. "He probably is, but you can't be sure." "Puhlmann would kill you if—" The first voice let out a volley of oaths. "That bloody little shit of a clubfoot, blast his guts," he ended up. "He scrounged the horse and cart," the second voice said. "You're lucky; at least you can put your pack in it." "D'you think I'd carry it? Blast the stubborn little bastard!" "But for him that chap would have been dead long ago." "Yes, but what's the good of that? He's done for, isn't he? Is he still out?" "Sure to be." "He won't come round again, you'll see." "Perhaps he will." "You're crazy. How long have you been out here?" "Long enough to know that nothing's impossible. Absolutely nothing, I tell you. Didn't Angerer Toni come through?" "Angerer Toni was never left wandering about behind the Russian lines. He managed to get to a dressing station, and then he was put on a train and sent home. And then he was put in a hospital, and had doctors and nurses and everything. But we?"

"Keep your bloody mouth shut." "Do you think that if the Russians catch us they'll put him in a hospital? Yes, I know, they've got first-class doctors and nurses, and beds and operating theaters, like in the movies. But none of us will ever see them. If they catch us, we don't have a chance. Or perhaps we'll have a small chance, but you know what they'll do to him." "Why are you shouting like that? I'm not deaf!" "Where has Puhlmann gone?" "He said he was going to scrounge some food." "I should like to know if—" Footsteps approached slowly, I half-shut my eyes, and saw a big, stubby face looking over the edge of the cart. The man stared at me for a long time with deep-set, glittering eyes. Then he vanished again, and the second voice said: "He's asleep. He looks dreadful." "What do you think you look like? Just take a look at yourself!" "He looks dreadful—like a corpse. Perhaps he is dead." "Suppose we've been dragging a corpse around," said the first voice with a giggle. "It's perfectly possible, isn't it? I'll kill the horse—" "You won't!" "Won't I?" "No, you won't." After a while the first voice said: "If only I wasn't so hungry! Do you think clubfoot will bring back something?" Fear shook me like a fever, and I could hardly breathe.

V "Did the Russians get him?" Elfie asked cautiously and hesitantly. "Was he killed?" She wondered why men disliked talking about the dead. Why would he tell her nothing about this Puhlmann? Why wouldn't he tell her what it was like at the front? "No," said the doctor. "Our people killed him. The Germans." "The Germans?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because he was pilfering. He was caught red-handed and shot." He paused for a moment and then added: "He was pilfering because I said I wanted some preserved peaches."

VI The Doctor

Puhlmann came back with a load of potatoes. He said he had stolen them from a cellar near the village bath-house, and it had not been very easy; Russian troops were in the village. He had hidden for nearly an hour behind a small mound, on the other side of which were a lot of Russian soldiers. "Then I heard a girl scream," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "and not far away from me five soldiers took hold of her—she was only about seventeen or eighteen—tore off her clothes and raped her one after the other. Two of them held her arms while one of them sat on her head and two others held her legs; she gave them a lot of trouble, because she was big and strong; and, when the last man had finished with her, the first one started again, and then the second and so on; but by that time she had stopped struggling. Then they propped her up on her legs again, but she was like a piece of rubber or a straw doll, and she collapsed. The men started arguing about what to do with her and two of them walked off and wanted to have no more to do with it. The other three stood her on her feet again and talked to her, but they managed to make her stand up only after the third attempt. One of them said: 'Idi, idi,' put her clothes in her hand and gave her a shove in the direction of the wood. They stood watching her as she struggled across the field. She fell, scrambled to her feet, crawled on all fours, stood up, and then collapsed again. She must have been one of those who were forced to work for the Germans. Perhaps she had only had to dig a grave or wash clothes; but, when the Russians recaptured the village, I expect some revolting old witch said: that's a German whore. She went off in the direction of the wood, but you could hear her screams for a long time, shrill, long drawn-out screams, just like the screams of a puppy I once heard being tortured by two small boys in a Berlin backyard. I couldn't get the sound out of my ears for a long time." "At least they left her alive," one of the soldiers said. "Others were raped first and killed afterward." "But how long will she stay alive?" said Puhlmann. "What will she do alone in the wood?" "Aren't those potatoes done yet?" "They won't be long now." "Let's hope nobody notices the fire." "It's a long way from the village, and they're all drunk," said Puhlmann. "That was why I was able to get into the cellar. The doors creaked." "Next time take an oil can with you." "Next time go yourself." "Nobody's as good at scrounging as you are. Where did you pick it up? Aren't those potatoes done yet?" I could hardly eat. In the middle of the night we went on again—I think there were six or seven men with us now— and the jolting of the cart along the forest track brought tears to my eyes. The next few days passed in a kind of haze; I was unable to distinguish between dream, nightmare, and reality. In the end the stench of my wound penetrated to my dazed consciousness. I remembered Seppl the Bavarian in our hospital; and sometimes I conducted long conversations with him and the big, mustached nurse who looked after him, though I could not think of her name. At times I found the stench of my wound almost unbearable. In the end only Puhlmann and three others were left. One of them stepped on a mine and was killed. The other two wanted to shoot the horse, because they could not stand the hunger any

longer, and Puhlmann drove them off with a submachine gun. I could not see what happened, but I heard their voices. "Put that thing away!" the first man said. "Have you gone mad?" "Would you really shoot?" the second man asked. "Clear off!" said Puhlmann. "You're mad! What good will it do you?" "Clear off, I tell you!" "Can't you see that your sawbones has had it? Can't you see that he's as good as dead?" said the first man. "You only have to look at him," the other man said. "And soon the horse'll drop dead too." "Can't you see that if we don't eat we'll be so weak that we'll have no chance of getting through? And you'll certainly never manage it by yourself." "Don't try telling us you're not hungry!" I was terrified that Puhlmann was going to give in. Without the horse there would be no hope for me. I had never clung to life so passionately as I did then. But all he said was: "Clear off!" When I heard the tone of his voice I knew he was not going to give in. Where did he get the strength? The other two must have realized that arguing with him was useless. There was a sudden stir that I didn't see or even hear; I just felt it, and then there were two shots, and Puhknann's voice said, quiet and cold: "Next time I'll aim at your bellies." He took their things and flung them down on the ground, and they went off, cursing. "We'll get the horse and you, too, you clubfooted bastard, you can bet your life on it!" one of them shouted. When Puhlmann's face reappeared over the edge of the cart, I wanted badly to tell him how much I admired him, but instead found myself engaged in a conversation about retreat and flight with the corporal with the shattered knee, and feeling slightly ashamed of my tearful voice, said to Lieutenant von Andres: "Do you have to keep on rocking the boat?" He grinned and went on rocking the boat, and I felt sick. "For God's sake, stop it," I said to him, feeling furious at myself and my own helplessness, because I was unable to move. "The Prussians are marching on to the field of honor," he said. "They march as if they were dancing. Have you ever seen anything like it?" "I feel sick," I said, picked up a glass, and flung it in his face. The glass mounted slowly in the air and sang softly and almost imperceptibly and Lieutenant von Andres said: "Do you hear? The row those damned tanks make! Quiet, for God's sake, what would my dear grandmother say?" "For God's sake, stop rocking the boat." "What does a stiff leg matter?" said the major. "I want you to keep well forward. Dancing on the point of a needle is the greatest pleasure in life." Then I noticed that it was not the major, but the general, who was balancing his leg in the palm of his hand, and I said: "One leg is better than two. Two heads are better than no belly. No spine is better than having no genitals, which is a well-proved means of avoiding getting shot in the lung."

I forced myself to stop talking such nonsense, but the major was chasing me, my whole body hurt, and I lay down and wrote with my forefinger in the sand: "It stinks." The sand was a wonderful golden color, but it stank, so I crept on, but the stink crept along behind me, and I couldn't get away from it. I felt very tired and extremely sorry for myself, and I sat down, and Captain Surkamp said: "Vertebral injuries must be dealt with in accordance with the general principles for the treatment of all fractures. A broad incision must be made. After that the soft parts and loose fragments of bone must be removed, as well as any foreign bodies. Follow-up treatment is of course desirable, gentlemen, eight weeks in bed, and a Glisson bandage." He bent over the mutilated corpse, smelled it, looked up and said: "It smells good, doesn't it?" But I knew that it wasn't the corpse that was smelling, but that it was I, so I crept shamefacedly out of the lecture hall. The stairs were very steep, and I had to crawl down them. I ran home and wondered what mother would say, because I couldn't restrain my bladder. "You're as leaky as an old tire," she said. I walked into the house, and mother said: "Drink, sonny, drink!" Her face was gray and worried-looking and was covered with thick stubble, and only slowly did I realize that it was Puhlmann's face, and that it was his voice saying to me: "Drink, sonny, drink!" I drank, and the water was wonderfully cool, and I could have drunk a lot more. I said: "The treatment of paralysis calls for careful— careful—" What was the word I wanted? I couldn't think of it, and said "aftercare." No, that was wrong. "Symptom." No, that was wrong, too. Was it furunculosis? Nonsense, of course not. "This stink is horrible," I said to Puhlmann—I had only just realized that it really was Puhlmann. "It's not so bad," he said. "It's horrible," I said again, and if I had been able to I should have slapped his face for contradicting me. "Are the vultures here yet?" I asked. "There aren't any vultures," he said. "I've seen some. Where are we?" "Somewhere or other." "It's a big country," I said, looking at the enormous country. "It's a bloody awful country," said Puhlmann. "It's a big country," I said again, looking at the vultures and myself in the middle of this vast and appalling country, in the middle of which I looked terribly small, a mere pinpoint. The vast country filled me with horror and dread; it was alive; it was moving up and down in a most alarming manner, like the chest of a huge giant. Up and down, up and down it moved, from horizon to horizon, and beyond the horizon to the end of the world. I rose higher and higher above the horizon, and it went on breathing, and I went still higher, I wanted to see the end of it, but there was no end, it got bigger and bigger, and I lost sight of myself, I no longer existed in this huge country, and I thought: And man thinks he can put infinity in his pocket. I may have said this aloud, because I heard Puhlmann say: "That's what a louse always thinks." His face reappeared.

"I've just seen something, but I don't know exactly what it was, but don't worry about it, louse," I said. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "No." "You must eat something," he said. "Yes," I said. He put something cold, tough, and tasteless into my mouth. I chewed it and tried to swallow it, and in the end I managed to get it down, but promptly brought it up again. I shrieked with pain, and Erika (or perhaps it was Erni or Viki, I could not tell for certain, but it was a woman whose face I knew quite well, and it looked enormous in the mist) said: "The only possibility of conversion lies in—" "What?" I shouted after her, and it seemed to me tremendously important to hear the rest of the sentence, but she ran off through the mist and jumped into the river, and I lay down in the water and swam over the waterfall, and the rocks shot up toward me, and I lay on my belly under a tree, my wound hurt badly, and I began to sob and I felt very desperate, and I heard these words in me, round me, everywhere: What have I done? You did it. I did not do it. Everyone did it. That is— "What?" I asked. "War would stifle in its own horror," said Hildebrandt, and looked at me with hate-filled eyes. But that was unimportant. I knew that I was close to the answer, so close that it hurt, and I was suddenly aware that it was inexpressible, and so I said: "The heart of the matter lies elsewhere." When I awoke the cart was still stationary. Later Puhlmann told me that we had been on the move, but had stopped again. The pain had gone, and some time afterward Puhlmann came and told me that the horse had had it, and I had to think for a long time before I realized what he meant. At least we now had something to eat, he said. He had already cut out the best bits, and we were going to have a wonderful feast, and now he must get me down from the cart. He lifted me down and I was as stiff as a board, and pain came at me again like a raging beast, and again I lost consciousness. When I came to I was inside the metal belly of an armored troop-carrier, surrounded by men with lined and bearded faces. We bumped over the uneven country, and Puhlmann was lying in the corner, asleep; he looked quite small and shrunken. His' face was turned sideways, and his cheeks were on his knees, and when I saw him I started to sob. I tried to stop myself, but couldn't; I was too weak. I looked at him, sobbed, and fell asleep again. In the evening Puhlmann woke me and gave me something to eat, and this time I managed to keep it down. A man sitting next to me, cutting small chunks of bread from a loaf with a pocketknife and stuffing them slowly and deliberately into his mouth, said: "You've been damned lucky, doctor." "Where are we?" He shrugged his shoulders. "That little fellow with a clubfoot deserves the Knight's Cross," he went on. "Yes." "But they don't get it for that. If he'd killed a hundred men he'd have got it. Cigarette?"

"Please," I said. He fumbled in his breast pocket, produced a half-smoked cigarette, lit it, and put it into my mouth. It made me feel dizzy. "It's too much for one at first, I know," the man said. "It's good," I said. "Keep at it, then." I went on smoking, and every now and then he took a long puff himself, and so we went on until the cigarette was finished. "Is it very bad?" I asked. "What?" "The stink." "It certainly isn't pleasant, but it doesn't bother us." "How did I get here?" "Oh, that's a long story. You'd better ask your little clubfoot. He said he had had a horse that died. Then he built a kind of sledge out of branches, put you on it, and dragged you for a mile and a half, and for him in his state it must have been like a hundred miles for a strong, healthy man. Then he collapsed and couldn't go on, and that's how we found you. There's a war correspondent here who says he wants to write it up." "Where are we going?" I asked. He pointed ahead with his pocketknife, cut himself another chunk of bread, put it into his mouth, chewed, and said: "Can't you hear?" "What?" "The front." "I can't hear anything," I said. "Only another three miles, and we're through. We've only got to get through." "Where's Puhlmann?" "He'll soon be back. We're going through tonight." I gazed up into the thick treetops overhead, and then I heard battle noises coming from the direction in which the man had pointed. Then I dropped off to sleep, and during the fast, jolting, rattling, noisy journey through the dark I was only half there; I was half somewhere else, alone with my pain. I heard the loud voices of the soldiers only very remotely; the crackle of rifle fire and the empty cartridge case that fell on my arm were just as remote, and so was the sudden silence, followed soon afterward by the sound of excited voices and loud laughter, and I knew we were through. But it affected me less than I had expected, for I had felt absolutely certain that we should get through, the certainty came to me at some stage during the trip, throughout which I felt no fear. The men around me were strong and determined, and the stench of my wound didn't bother them in the least. Then I was cautiously and carefully lifted out, put on a stretcher, and carried into a big building, and a voice said: "God, how he stinks!" I knew he meant me, but didn't care. I dozed off, and when I awoke I was lying softly and comfortably on some straw in a room. The pain was still there, but it was very far away. It was daylight.

A young man wearing a white coat came in, knelt beside me, and asked how I felt. His face was well-nourished and smoothly shaved, and on his right cheek you could see the cut where he had nipped himself with the razor. "Where's Puhlmann?" I asked. "Who's he?" "The medical orderly who brought me here. A thin, little chap with a limp." "Oh, you mean the—" "Yes, where is he?" "I don't know. But I'll inquire, if you like. How do you feel, my dear doctor?" I looked at him in astonishment, and then it dawned on me where I was and whom I was talking to. "Pretty wretched, thank you." "That's not surprising. Ten days with a wound like that!" "Ten days?" "More or less. You're a star, so to speak. The consulting surgeon came and operated on you himself." "What consulting surgeon?" "Professor Hansen, you must know the name." "Never heard of him." He laughed, and his face and bright blue eyes were very young and harmless. "He flew here specially in a Storch. It's a miracle that you're alive." "If I survived those ten days, I've obviously nothing to fear from the knife of a consulting surgeon." "Well, the fact that you've kept your sense of humor is the best sign that you—" "Yes, of course, I know," I said, and shut my eyes again. He tired me, and he was so shamelessly healthy that it was quite painful. "I'll drop in again later," he said. "Have a good rest, you've earned it." He stood up, carefully dusted his knees, nodded to me, and left. "May I have a cigarette?" I called out after him. "Later," he said. So I was forbidden to smoke, I said to myself, and felt furious, though I told myself that I had every reason to feel the opposite. Later I talked to the man lying next to me, who looked at me the whole time with wide-open eyes. But talking to him gave me no pleasure either; it tired me, and soon afterward I felt better, better than I had ever felt in the whole of my life, and I dropped off to sleep in the middle of one of his sentences. I dreamed I was in a big, carefully tended garden that seemed somehow familiar, though I could not place it. I walked between the flower beds; the paths were carefully swept, and there was nobody in sight. When I went into the house, there was nobody there, either; and then I suddenly found myself in the basement, between long shelves of preserved fruit. I picked up a jar of peaches, and very much wanted to open it and eat them, but didn't dare, because I was afraid that the dream would end and the peaches vanish. I knew that I was dreaming and that in reality I was lying asleep on some straw, and that the peaches did not really exist. But in the end I could not stand it any longer and opened the jar, and what I had expected happened. I found myself outside in the street, crawling

toward the gutter, because I thought that that was where the jar of peaches was. The crawling was very painful and, as I was perfectly well aware that the peaches did not exist, I forced myself to wake up. "At last!" said Puhlmann, who was squatting next to me. "How are you?" It took me some time to find my way back to reality. Puhlmann's gnomelike face was freshly shaved and he still looked very thin and run-down, though he was rested and cheerful and grinned at me broadly. I tried to thank him for all he had done for me, but there was a constriction in my throat and I couldn't get out a word. "You look fine," he said. "Would you like a cigarette?" I nodded, he lit a cigarette, and put it into my mouth, but I couldn't smoke it, so he finished it. My mind was still haunted by the peaches in the dream, and I said: "Could one get peaches here?" "Peaches?" "Yes, preserved peaches. I have a craving for them, just like a pregnant woman." "Are there any peaches in this dump?" Puhlmann asked my neighbor. "Peaches?" said the man. "Peaches? Never heard of them. What are they? You must be mad!" "Yellow and pink and soft and sweet," I said. "You can't expect them in a field hospital like this," said Puhlmann. "They may have some at the rations depot," said my neighbor. "What rations depot?" "Forget it," I said. "It's an absurd idea." "It's an army rations depot or something of the sort," said my neighbor. "You can't imagine the stuff they've got there. Mountains of it, it's fantastic. I went there once with our quartermaster. They sit on the stuff like hens on their eggs, and that's just how they behave if you get too close to the shelves. Fifty yards of shelves reaching right up to the ceiling, crammed full of tins and bottles and cigarettes and chocolate, canned chicken, schnapps, wines, liqueurs, whole batteries of them, and the refrigerator room's full of whole pigs hanging head down. Preserved fruit? They must have mountains." "I know," said Puhlmann. "We had to evacuate one of those places in 1942." "And what will happen if this town has to be evacuated?" my neighbor asked. "They'll blow it up," said Puhlmann. "Of course. I've seen it happen. We didn't get a thing. The quartermaster said he had no orders. And, of course, when the Russians arrived the whole place was blown up." "Orders are orders," said Puhlmann. "I bet they've got loads of peaches. And they'd go down very nicely, wouldn't they?" "One might try—" said Puhlmann, carefully stubbing out his cigarette. "It wouldn't half make them puff and blow," said my neighbor. "Forget it," I said. "It was just a dream of mine. And when I wanted to eat them they were gone." "You can always dream about them," said my neighbor. We dropped the subject, and I soon forgot about my ridiculous craving. Toward evening Puhlmann left, and said he would be back next morning. He told me he had been pulling some strings, and perhaps he might be able to remain here at the hospital, at any rate for the time be-

ing, until I was sent farther back. My neighbor said that this was likely to happen in two or three days' time at the latest, because the front was moving nearer and nearer—hadn't we heard the noise? In two or three days' time, or a week perhaps, the Russians would be here in the hospital and, of course, the rations depot, too. After Puhlmann had gone, the man wanted to go on talking. His was only an ordinary shoulder wound, he said, and he was bound to be sent home, and he wanted to know exactly where I had been hit, and how I had survived for ten whole days with a wound like mine. But I was too weak and exhausted to want to talk much and too preoccupied with my own pain, which kept coming back in long waves, and I wondered whether I should ever be able to walk again. I tried in my mind to weigh up all the various possibilities, but soon gave up; it was no good without knowing exactly how and where I had been hit. Apparently I had been hit in the spine. There were a number of possible causes for the paralysis, and the fact that I could see no infection was a good sign. Or was my tiredness, my exhaustion, my indifference to everything . . . But, no, I thought, probably only a bit of bone was pressing on the nervous tract, and a skillful surgeon could . . . But I had already been operated on, so it must only have been a matter of compression phenomena, the consequences should have been got rid of, otherwise improvement would already have set in. But don't be so impatient, I said to myself, things don't go as fast as that—I spoke to myself exactly as I had so often spoken to others. After effects? Quite possible. But it was also possible that the medulla was severed. In that case I should be a cripple for life. No, that's wrong; in that case you'll be in the same state as Seppl the Bavarian. And will you find a nurse who will look after you day and night until you die? I made up my mind to ask the young doctor exactly what was the matter with me and, if necessary, to force the truth from him. After a sergeant had given me the usual injection, I quickly fell asleep, looking at the illustrations of the human spine I had so often seen in the anatomical atlas or in the dissecting room. Next morning Puhlmann did not appear. Late in the afternoon the doctors made their usual rounds, with the consulting surgeon in the lead; he was an elderly, gray-haired man with a round red face, and the pleasure he took in eating and drinking was evident from afar. The others addressed him as professor. No doubt he insisted on this, because by rank he was only a captain, and two members of his respectful escort were his military seniors. One was the lieutenant colonel in command of the hospital and the other, a major, was its principal surgeon. The whole thing passed off exactly as in a teaching hospital at home in Germany. There were the usual inquiries about how the patient felt, the usual muttered statements and whispered comment and instructions, the usual solemn and nervous faces. An age seemed to have passed since I had walked in the ruck of such processions, waiting full of anxiety and uneasiness for the "old man" to put a question to me, knowing very well that my inadequate reply would inevitably be followed by a blast, or one of his famous sarcasms. The professor stopped longer in front of me than in front of the others. "Well, my dear doctor, how do we feel?" "Better," I said. "You've given us a lot of headaches." In his voice and his bright, bespectacled eyes, which were full of energy and self-satisfaction, you could read the obvious pride he felt at the successful outcome of his work. "Well, what did I tell you, gentlemen?" he said, turning to the others. "You were ready to write him off; no doubt about it, my dear doctor, you already had one foot in

the next world." He turned to the others and went on: "And now he'll soon be ready to march on Moscow again." They laughed. "But first of all, my friend," he said, turning again to me, "we shall send you marching off home. It's lucky for you that during recent years I have been concentrating on surgery of the spine." "But what is actually the matter with me?" I asked. "Another typical case," said the professor, turning to the others. "I have dealt with many wounded colleagues—I must say that when I hear that one of us has been wounded nothing can hold me back—but hardly any of them have ever known what was the matter with them, unless, of course, it was a leg wound. It was your spine, my friend, and on top of it a bad flesh wound, and the liver affected. Though there was compression because of congested cerebrospinal fluid, the nervous system was not permanently damaged, just temporarily disturbed. ... I have, as far as possible, got rid of this. You were in a bad way, and with the wound in that state I naturally could not get rid of everything." He held his nose between his forefingers and gave me a searching look. "It will be necessary to operate two or three times more, but it will be some time before we get as far as that. To you I can tell the truth. In any case, my principle is always to tell patients the truth. They must know exactly what is the matter with them, because then they are in a better position to cooperate. The patient's cooperation is the great thing. Mind and body, gentlemen, form an indivisible whole; and, when the mind is determined, it can perform miracles on the body. Those are the so-called miracle cures. At my time of life that is something that you gentlemen must never forget. I have no use for secrecy. Never throw sand in a patient's eyes, never use ostrich methods. Well—" He nodded to me; and, when he moved on, everybody else moved on, too. You could hear the distant thunder of the front. My neighbor said that the Russians were getting nearer and nearer, and it was high time we were evacuated. Up to two days before you had not heard anything, or at most the occasional sound of aircraft overhead. A bomb had dropped on a hut behind the building, and fifty men had been killed—nearly all jaundice cases. They thought they were lucky, that the war was over for them, certainly for the time being, they weren't even wounded, they just had jaundice, and then a bomb dropped and it was all over. I hardly listened to the man's talk. When men were sick it was nearly always jaundice. Where was Puhlmann? I asked the sergeant, but he only shrugged his shoulders, and when I told him to go and find out he asked me whether I thought he had nothing better to do in this chaos than to look for a stray medical orderly. My neighbor told me not to worry; Puhlmann was bound to turn up. In these times, he said, it was no use relying on anyone to keep an appointment. He had been dropped by his girl at home because he had never known for certain when he would be able to turn up. She could never understand it. She said that a man must keep his word. But how could he nowadays? He went on talking, the efforts he made to reassure me were quite touching. Eventually I asked to speak to the young doctor. I had to shout at a corporal and give him a thorough dressing-down before he fetched him. I rather frightened the doctor by shouting at him, too. Did they think they could leave me lying here as if I were a lump of dirt?

"Calm yourself, please," he said. "We all want to help, but you know what it's like. If you could see what things are like outside in the schoolyard and in the corridors; they're chock-full of wounded. I've never seen so many wounded in my life. We get no sleep at all." His tired face and the rings under his eyes showed that he was speaking the truth, and his white coat was soaked with blood. "Where's Puhlmann?" I asked. "Oh . . ." he said, and swallowed his mounting anger. He must have had patience preached at him, patience, patience, and then more patience. They have given their blood for their country, and one must be careful not to anger them. "You mean the—" "Yes," I said. "I'm sorry, I haven't seen him." "Listen, my dear doctor, that man kept me alive for ten days behind the Russian lines. He stole potatoes and cabbages from villages occupied by the Russians. If he said he was coming in the morning, you can be sure that he was coming in the morning. Now it's late afternoon. If he hasn't turned up, it means that something must have happened to him." "I appreciate that. But how am I to find him? Where am I to look?" "I don't know, but you've got to find him." I hadn't the slightest idea how he was to find him, of course; and when I looked at his tired, bewildered face I was overcome with hopelessness. Hadn't I myself seen what it was like in a town when the front was approaching? What hope was there of finding one single man in that chaos? "I'll try," he said. "And now try to sleep, please." He spoke as if asking me to do him a favor. I nodded, closed my eyes, and listened to his footsteps until they were outside in the corridor. That night I did not sleep. The hospital was alive. There were continual screams and groans. More and more wounded were brought into the room, and there was no one to attend them. Soon not an inch of free space was left. At one point one of the wounded men started shrieking that his neighbor had been dead for two hours and the body ought to be taken away. My neighbor said that the little grenadier beside him who had been brought in with a wound in the head was dead too, but that didn't worry him; the poor boy •had stopped groaning and writhing. Toward morning I dozed off for a bit, but soon some short sharp detonations quite near us woke me again; medical orderlies were running about frantically, and my neighbor had vanished. We got no breakfast. During the morning they started carrying the wounded out. We were told that the town was being hurriedly evacuated, because the Russians had already reached the outskirts, and important buildings were being blown up. That reminded me of the rations depot and Puhlmann. I asked the medical orderlies to take me out last, but they hardly listened to me. I must have gone to sleep for a while, because, when I opened my eyes again, the young doctor was standing in front of me; he had changed so much in the past few days that I hardly recognized him. "A man has just been here—" he said. "Puhlmann?" I asked. He nodded, produced from a pocket in his bloodstained coat a small parcel tied with string and laid it in the straw near my face. "What has happened?" I exclaimed. "He was shot while breaking into the storage depot," the doctor said. "Or rather afterward, while he was trying to run away. He was challenged by a sentry, but he didn't answer and ran, so the sentry had to fibre." "Yes, and ..."

"The sentry's outside. He told me he had to fire; he had specific orders to fire at intruders because of pilfering. He's dreadfully sorry about it; you can see from his face. He said he was able to speak to him because he didn't die instantly, and he gave him a haversack with some preserved fruit in it and this parcel, and told him where to find you. The sentry said the haversack was full of preserved peaches; he told him that he had been sent away by the quartermasters, so he had tried that way, but had been unlucky. The sentry said that he would have brought you the peaches, but two military policemen and his corporal turned up and he had to hand over the haversack to them. Were the peaches for you?" "Yes," I said. "Would you like to see the sentry?" "No." "I'm very sorry," he muttered. "I'm very sorry indeed." "I want to get out of here," I said.

VII "What are you thinking about?" Elfie said. "I was just lying here feeling happy," Braun answered. She raised herself slightly until her face was level with his. "Crooked Nose," she said, rubbing his nose with hers. "That was an Eskimo kiss," she said. "You are Crooked Nose, my Eskimo, lightweight champion of the North Pole. How many polar bears have you knocked out, Crooked Nose?" "I'm a middleweight," he said. "Ninety-seven bears in the first round." "And I'm a heavyweight," she said, and laughed. "Hundred and forty pounds," he said. "That's far from being a heavyweight." "How dare you say such a thing? I'm a hundred and thirty pounds and not an ounce more." "Hundred and thirty-five." "Am I really as fat as al. that?" "Of course you are; you're much too fat." "You say that as if it were a declaration of love. Please make me one." "I'm constantly making you declarations of love, but you never notice." "On the contrary, I always do, but I want you to tell me you love me all the same." "I love you." "That was no good at all. Say it again, and this time say it as if you meant it." "What?" "You know quite well." "I loVe you." "That's better. What else have you got to tell me?" "Nothing. That's all." She wondered at herself lying there next to him, with his body close to hers and his thigh between her legs, feeling it natural and right that it should be so, as if she had known him for years, had always known him. She felt no shame at her naked body and her desire—and how could that

have happened? For his sake she had left home, believing that she wanted to be alone, but on the very first night she had longed for him and listened to the sounds outside, wondering whether it was he. She would not think about her father, or talk about him now. Later perhaps. But suppose later turned out to be too late? Suppose tomorrow turned out to be too late? Suppose they came and took her as they had taken her father? But why should they take her? She had had nothing to do with all those things. But why had they taken her father? He had done nothing; they were bound to release him. And suppose Karl was sent back to the front? Her father would come back, she would and must believe it, and at home things would be as they were before, and she would wait for Karl, she would wait, even if— O God, please don't let him go, please don't let him go.

VIII Elfie The second time we met was about two weeks after that disastrous evening. I had a free afternoon, it was very hot, and I went to the park open-air swimming pool. I sunbathed in my usual place in a remote corner where I felt fairly safe from the attentions of lonely soldiers. I read for a bit, and then I must have dozed off. Suddenly I heard a voice quite close to me—I hadn't heard its owner approaching. It said: "Here lies beauty herself, Born of the zephyrs of spring." He knelt beside me and looked at me, thinking about how to go on, and his eyes were almost golden. "Where did you come from?" "It's just like when I was a small boy at school," he said. "I can never remember more than the first two lines." "Did you write them yourself?" "Of course! Do you think I would quote anybody else? But, to be perfectly frank, I've forgotten how it goes on. I can't even remember the name of Werther's girl friend." "It's a long time since I've been wakened so agreeably," I said. "With original verses." "Generally nowadays one is wakened by sirens." He imitated the wail of an air-raid warning. "For heaven's sake, don't make that noise." "May I sit beside you?" "Why do you ask? You're doing it already." "I've been looking for you for quite a long time," he said. "You chose an excellent hiding place." "Why were you looking for me?" "Because not long ago I saw Aphrodite rising from the waters." "So you promptly started composing verses on the subject?" "Exactly. I was so busy with this that I lost sight of you. Perhaps I also thought that you had just vanished into thin air." "Do you always talk like this?"

"Only when I see you. How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you. At any rate at the moment." "For the past two weeks I've been feeling dreadful. I've been trying in vain to get Joachim to arrange for me to meet you again." "And what are you doing here?" "I come here for a swim nearly every day. For medical reasons, prescribed by myself. I feel almost at home here already. Haven't you noticed?" "I certainly have." "You must come here more often yourself. As white as snow, as red as blood, as black as night. I beg your pardon, that's wrong. As golden as a ray of sunshine or a field of ripe corn." "Where did you pick all that up?" "It just comes to me naturally. The result of admiration." "Didn't you hear it at the movies?" "Perhaps I did." He looked at me, and we laughed, and I think that at that moment I suspected what was going to happen. I struggled against it, of course. Hadn't he given us all a slap in the face two weeks ago by talking the way he had? My father in particular was much more upset by it than he ever admitted. He talked to me about it a few days later. How, he asked me, could the young man trample like that on ideals that for generations had been held to be the supreme virtues? He may have been through a great deal, he may be embittered by his experiences, but did that justify his dragging through the mud everything that we and many generations before us had held sacred? How appalling it would be if there were many who thought like him! My father refused to believe it; if he did, he would have had to admit that all our past history and everything our family had ever stood for had been in vain. Well, I must say that I did not take it so terribly to heart myself. Karl had had too much to drink that evening, and he was obviously in pain; besides, I could well imagine that the old gentlemen, particularly the general, got on his nerves with their endless stories and everlasting talk about the last war and their futile speculations about the present one. They certainly got on my nerves. If I didn't tell my father this, it was only to spare his feelings. I was very worried at the way events of the past two years and particularly of the past few months had affected him. The world in which he had grown up was foundering, and he was obviously foundering with it. "I don't want to outlive it," he once said. "The end of it will be the end of me." Now what he had foreseen seemed to be coming true, and he was only the shadow of his former self. I loved him and was worried about him, and tried to keep away everything that would depress him. At any rate I tried to be what he always wanted me to be and, until I met Karl, I found it very easy to do this. Perhaps it was love at first sight. I always used to laugh at the idea of love at first sight, like everybody else to whom it has never happened. But would it be such a widely held idea if it never happened? Perhaps it's only the way people talk about it that makes it seem so absurd. However that may be, I fought against it. The young doctor's world was not my father's world, nor mine; to me it was a strange and alien world. I took a quick glimpse at it and withdrew in horror from its hardness and pitilessness. I— we—needed a retreat into which we could flee from reality, I said to myself. Only later did I discover that the retreats in which most men

take refuge, the retreat that I myself had made and my father before before me, were nothing but cheap picture-postcard illustrations of a world that no longer existed. Inner peace is attainable only by accepting reality, even if it crushes you; rebelling against it is no use. If you run away from reality you bar the way to even the smallest particle of truth. If I had been alone I should have had the courage to plunge straight into the doctor's world in spite of my fear of it. But I had to think of my father, and so I told myself to stop. I shrank back in fear of myself from the unrest that seized me when I looked into the doctor's eyes; I shrank back from the weakness that made my hands tremble, from the almost intolerable longing for his touch. For I was perfectly well aware that he was the stronger, that his world was stronger than ours, that his was reality and ours was sham. Following him meant giving up oneself and going out in search of the new. How absurd of me to think I could hold out against him. I tried to appear cool and indifferent, and I believe I succeeded. I noted almost with satisfaction how this hurt him; but it hurt me, too. I told myself that I must not see him again or it would inevitably get the better of me, and at the same time I was terribly afraid of losing him. Or were the obstacles between us no more than a figment of my imagination? Was I merely reacting in woman's immemorial fashion to a man's wooing? Were all my complicated arguments about his world and ours a mere pretext offered me by the times in which we lived? I told him I must go. "Why?" he asked. "Why must you go already?" The imploring, hungry, and, so it seemed to me, almost desperate expression on his face nearly made me change my mind. Against my will I lied. "I've got a lot to do," I said. "I should have been home long ago." "May I come with you a little way?" "Why?" "I was only thinking—couldn't we meet again?" I shook my head for lack of anything to say. "But—but—" I turned and walked away. I left him standing there looking at me; how gladly I should have turned and told him that I was a perfect fool, that there was nothing more important in life than love, that in times like these it was more important than ever, and that there was nothing that I wanted more than to see him again, to be with him as long as he liked, forever. He followed me, took my arm, and made me turn toward him. "Why? Please tell me. Because of what happened the other day? But that's absurd, that can't be the reason. Please explain." "Please let me go," I said. "You're hurting me." "I don't understand," he said. "I like you. Why won't you see me again?" To avoid having to make any more stupid remarks I walked away without answering, and this time he did not follow me. When I got home, I cried my eyes out. I thought I had lost him before anything had happened between us. Before anything had happened between us? I imagined having his arms around me, I imagined holding his strong, sinuous body in mine, decided that everything was over, that life had no more meaning; I behaved, in fact, as thousands of girls in love have behaved before me,

and failed completely to take into account the obstinacy and persistence of a man in love. In short, I thought that the end of the world had come, though the world had no intention of coming to an end. But it never occurred to Karl to accept defeat. He did not worry about "my" world and "his" world and, if any such idea had passed through his head he would have dismissed it as trivial and irrelevant. For him the situation was perfectly simple and straightforward. He had fallen in love with a young woman who for some inexplicable reason did not want to have anything to do with him—not because she disliked him but because of some other, mysterious reason. For him I was only a silly girl who shunned his company, not because she did not want it but for some reason which he was determined to get to the bottom of, because she did not dare. I was very far from realizing all this at the time, of course. I thought I had lost him, but all the time he was carefully preparing his campaign. He found a powerful ally in Joachim. I don't know how he managed it, but Joachim, who used invariably to belittle all my admirers and never found a good word to say for any of them, began praising him to the skies. "How would it be if the three of us went out together?" he said to me one day. "We could . . ." "I'm too busy, I have no time," I said. "What have you got against him?" "Why on earth should I have anything against him?" "He told me you sent him away with a flea in his ear." "Nonsense." "You see what happens when I bring somebody to the house whom I like? You send him away with a flea in his ear. What's the matter with him? He's one of the best men I know." "I can't see what you can see in him," I said. "You think highly of anyone who can drink as much as you can." "You don't meet men like him very often," he said. "So there's nothing doing, then?" "Of course not." After that I was left alone for a few days—but then Joachim rang me up again. "Listen, darling," he said, "I don't like the look of you a bit. You're getting thinner and thinner and paler and paler, and living on your rations doesn't seem to be doing you any good. And that damned office of yours. Do you really have to go there every day?" "Of course. Would you rather I worked in a munitions factory?" "Shells for victory, German women at the lathe. You'd certainly be discovered by the newsreels. But what I was going to tell you was—" "I can imagine." "No, you can't, darling. You're dining out with me tonight. We're going to have a wonderful meal—nothing to do with ration cards—and there'll be a bottle of wine, and afterward a little music and so on. Make yourself beautiful, darling, I want you to make the other girls green with envy. Well, how about it?" "What's your little game this time?" I asked mistrustfully. When Joachim issues a grand invitation of this kind he generally has an ulterior motive. "What little game could there be?" "How should I know?"

"Listen, darling, you really shouldn't be so suspicious." Then his voice grew serious. "In three days' time I've got to report back to Kottbus. Can't I have a little farewell party?" That, of course, changed the situation. I accepted, and he came to fetch me, and we went to the Deutsche Kaiser, where a table was laid for us in one of the dining rooms. We were waited on by Otto, the old headwaiter, whom I had known since childhood, and the whole thing was almost like peacetime. "What a pleasure to see you, Fraulein von Carsten," he exclaimed. "What a delightful reminder of the old days and the old faces! Nowadays it's not the same thing at all, we serve practically nothing but table-d'hote meals to strangers. And the ration cards. Just imagine us having to snip them." He snipped with an imaginary pair of scissors. "Fortunately, all your customers don't have to produce them," said Joachim. He looked very handsome in his new uniform. "The question naturally does not arise in your case, sir," said Otto. "I have also put aside an excellent bottle of wine for you." "Well, then, let's have it." "And how about a little cognac beforehand, sir?" "You mean a German Weinbrand, made of potatoes?" "How could you suggest such a thing, sir? I mean real French cognac, straight from France, it arrived only yesterday." "How I wish I had your connections. Is it any good?" "Sir, it could not be better." Otto kissed the tips of his fingers and looked at us with an expression of rapture. "Well, that's fine. Elfie, did you know that our Otto is a platoon commander in the Volkssturm?" "That is quite correct, madam," said Otto. " 'Shun! Stand at ease!" He- clicked his heels and stuck out his shirt front, which was beautifully starched, but no longer very white. Then he laughed, and his face puckered into innumerable little wrinkles. "But those French rifles 1 I can't do anything with them," he went on. "And to think that not long ago I could hit five streetcar tickets with five rounds. Once upon a time I was the best marksman in the company, but that was a long time ago, during the First World War." "Obviously it's the fault of the rifle," said Joachim. "Yes, sir, I think so; though of course one isn't so young as one used to be. One's eyes are not so good." I tried hard to picture Otto as a soldier but couldn't. Joachim must have spent a small fortune on that dinner; he may even have got himself into debt because of it. We had snails for the first course (Otto explained that the establishment naturally had its connections with France) and a wonderful 1935 Riesling with which even my father's cellar could hardly compete; and all this earned us poisonous glances from the corner where a major was sitting with a heavily made-up blonde. And, as was to be expected, the whole thing was a put-up job, because we had hardly begun to eat when Karl walked in. He, too, was wearing a new uniform ("On account of all the money I'm going to make in the future," he explained). Tall, sinewy, and broad-shouldered, he suddenly stood before us wearing a pleased and slightly mocking expression, and he looked at me until I dropped my eyes.

"What a surprise!" he exclaimed. "May I?" he sat down without waiting for permission. "Where on earth did you spring from?" exclaimed Joachim. "I haven't seen you for ages." "Discharged patients quickly forget their benefactors," Karl remarked to me. "Benefactors? Well, I'm not so sure," said Joachim. "Where are you off to this evening in your gala uniform?" "I was going to the movies, but couldn't get in. What luck to have run into you!" Their play-acting was not very good; in spite of my confusion I could hear the false tone in their voices. "Which film were you going to see?" I asked. "Oh, you know the thing, what's it called?" "At the Ufa Palace?" "Yes, that's it. At the Ufa Palace." He smiled at me so ingenuously that I did not have the heart to tell him that the Ufa Palace had been closed for the past week. Joachim, obviously scenting danger, called Otto, who produced another place setting with such remarkable speed and agility that I decided he must be involved in the plot. Usually he was not that quick. It was a wonderful evening. Not for a long time had I dined so well or eaten so much. My full tummy may have had something to do with my rapid capitulation. . . . Let me have men about me that are fat. . . . Why should I go on struggling against this strong, this overwhelming feeling? Why, I said to myself, in my slightly tipsy state, should I go on struggling against an opponent who performed miracles like enlisting Joachim and Otto as his allies, particularly as what he wanted I really wanted myself? The enemy had made a wide breach in the defenses of the fortress, and against this alliance I was powerless. All my resolutions went overboard, and so did all the things my father had said, and in comparison with the fact that we were together everything else was trivial and unimportant. I was thoroughly reconciled to a continuation of the party when—obviously as part of the plot—the air-raid sirens sounded and Joachim had to return to his barracks. Karl and I went and sat in a distant corner of the hotel air-raid shelter. How remote seemed the frightened, nervous faces of the others! The painted blonde hysterically asked her escort whether we were safe from a direct hit by a big bomb. She obviously got on his nerves, and he ended by telling her with military abruptness to shut up. She pouted and did so. Everything seemed to be happening in a world that had nothing to do with me. I was happy, and surrendered completely to the feeling of being protected; I was not alone, and no bomb was big enough to frighten me. Here, in this dimly lit cellar, there was no one but him and me; we were the only reality; we were real; and everything and everybody else and everything that was happening outside was shadow and illusion. The cellar was deep and solidly built, and the crash of the bombs outside was remote and almost inaudible. Suddenly the lights went out; there were some shrieks of alarm; the blonde burst into terrified sobs, and a deep male voice said: "Keep calm, please, ladies and gentlemen, keep calm. No panic, please. The interruption of the electric supply is only temporary." "For heaven's sake, keep quiet," said the major's angry voice. "We're perfectly safe here." "Did you arrange this, too?" I quietly asked Karl. "What do you mean?"

"The air raid and—the temporary interruption of the electricity?" "So you think—" he laughed softly and deeply, and took my hand. "Mine is the faith that moves mountains, calls for British bombers, and temporarily interrupts the electric service. Do you seriously believe you can resist it?" He said this with great selfassurance; and, if anyone else had said it, I should have been revolted; but I was not revolted by him. What he said seemed so obvious, and there was also a slight smile behind it, as if he were a little amused, both at himself and at the two of us. Why were we making things so difficult? Hadn't I realized yet that it wasn't any use? Later, when the raid was over, he took me home. I thought he was going to kiss me outside the garden gate, but he did not. It was a warm, moonlit night, and the Milky Way shone in the velvety sky. A big fire was blazing at the other end of town, but it left me unmoved. I looked into his face, which was bent over me, and for a few moments he stood there motionless, looking at me very seriously. "Until tomorrow," he said eventually. "Until tomorrow." Next day we met again at the swimming pool. After that we saw each other practically every day. When Joachim left, we took him to the station. "Well, you two, if anything ever goes wrong between you, please don't blame me," he said. "Send me a copy of the birth certificate. I insist on being godfather." "Joachim, you're an idiot!" I exclaimed, and when I saw the two men's laughing faces I felt even more embarrassed. I never went to Karl's room. I expected him to ask me, and wondered what I should say if he did, but he did not. I was pleased at this—and also a bit disappointed. About a week later he asked me to marry him. "We mustn't disappoint Joachim, must we?" he said. "When?" I asked. "Soon. As soon as possible." "I don't know. I don't want a war wedding." "What do you mean? A war wedding's as good as any other. It all depends on what one makes of one's life together." I was not sure that I agreed with him. What we do and how we do it depends not entirely on ourselves but also on circumstances. But I couldn't explain to him exactly what I meant. I wanted to get married, and reproached myself for my stupid dreams of a big, selfish, romantic, white wedding. All the same I was disappointed. I didn't say anything about this to Karl, of course. Can a man ever understand a young woman's dreams? "I'll talk to father today," I said. "He's going to be difficult." "Wouldn't it be better if I—?" "No. I know him, I must talk to him myself." "I'm sorry I behaved so stupidly that evening." "You didn't know. You were frank and honest, and though I can't understand you ..." I hesitated. We had never discussed that disastrous evening. I didn't agree with him, but I was in love, and I was terribly afraid of anything that might come between us. The slightest difference of opinion —and we had some, we were not one of those billing and cooing couples who tire of each other after a year or two— made me nervous and unhappy. We lived in times in which we

were surrounded by a thousand pitfalls; sometimes I thought that the times were just mocking all our plans, and loathed them for it. I tried to push them aside, to set up a small private world insulated from the world outside—similar to that of my father or my own. As if such a thing were possible. But one always makes the same mistakes. When I got home I told Therese, our housekeeper, that I was engaged. "Engaged!" she exclaimed. "To whom, the doctor?" "How do you know?" "Frau Fechter told me. She told me you were seeing him, and asked me whether there was anything between you. I told her I hadn't the slightest idea." Therese sounded slightly offended, as if she resented my having told her nothing about Karl and myself. "What has it to do with Frau Fechter?" "You know what she's like. She's interested in nothing but her son, the major—no, he's a lieutenant colonel now. And he wants to marry you, as everybody knows. It'll be a terrible shock to him, and consequently to her, too." "You never seriously thought that I would marry him?" "No, but he and his mother did. They had set their hearts on it." "But that's absurd! I've told him often enough that I would never marry him." "As if that made any difference," said Therese, with a sigh. "You'll see how she'll explode!" When I was alone in my room I thought about Lutz for the first time in a long while. His father had been our caretaker during the twenties; but when we lost most of our money we couldn't keep him any longer. He was a big, strong, good-natured man, very fond of his belly, and he used to consume vast quantities of beer. I often sat in his little workshop and listened to his stories, and I used to wait impatiently for him to go on while he took a long draught from the big beer bottle he always had beside him. He was a skillful carpenter, and made a lot of toys for me, many of which I kept—in particular a magnificent rocking horse that I still had in my room. But I never liked Lisa, his wife. Whenever I read stories about witches I always thought of her. She had a sharp face and big, black, piercing eyes (Therese sometimes thought she had the evil eye); and she was incredibly thin and active, and never stopped working from morning to night. As time went on, I grew to dislike her more and more; and when father had to give them notice I felt almost a sense of relief, though I knew I should miss the old man's stories. They went on living in their little house on the grounds until they found a place of their own, and old Fechter often came to see us. Therese always sent for him when her iron broke down or we had a leaking tap or there was any other odd job that needed doing. Lisa Fechter also appeared occasionally, and for a time I imagined she was watching and spying on me. After mother's death Therese was the only person I confided in, apart from father; and one day I told her about this. She replied by delivering a terrific eulogy of Lisa Fechter. Hadn't I been tremendously impressed by all she had done for her boy? If she had let his father have his way, Lutz would now be an ordinary apprentice or workman; but, as it was, he was obviously going to make his way in the world; and that was all Lisa's doing. After that I looked at Lisa with different eyes. I began to admire her, and also feel slightly sorry for her. She had a hard life, slaving away from morning to night, all for the sake of her son, who meant the whole world to her.

I remembered him from my childhood as a grim, silent, rather colorless boy. Then for many years I hardly saw him, though Therese used to talk about how he was getting on. He did not disappoint his mother. After doing excellently at school, he entered the army as an officer cadet. He had always wanted to be an officer, and he concentrated with admirable singlemindedness on achieving that ambition. Lisa often came to see Therese in the kitchen; and when she talked about the boy her eyes shone with immense pride; what Therese called her fanatical look came into them. I well remember the day when the news that Lutz had been awarded the Knight's Cross appeared in the newspapers. I knew Lisa was in the kitchen, and I went there to congratulate her. When I saw her, it was a shock. She was pressing the newspaper containing her son's photograph to her bosom as if she had to defend it against a whole world in arms, and she was trembling so violently that she could hardly speak. "It won't be long now!" she exclaimed when she became a little more coherent. "It won't be long now!" She stared at me fixedly as she said this. "What do you mean?" I felt uncomfortable under her piercing stare. "It won't be long now!" she repeated. "This is a new age. It won't be long!" Not till Lutz came home on leave did the meaning of these strange words become clear to me. Father suggested inviting to dinner this young man who had got on so remarkably in the world and was now a captain and had won the Knight's Cross. "Now the world's open to him," father said. "He has a fine future. We must forget he's the son of our former caretaker, Elfie. What matters is not his birth but what he has made of himself." "Have I ever suggested that he was only the son of our caretaker?" I said. "I beg your pardon, my dear," father answered, with a smile. "One comes up against social prejudice so often that sometimes one goes a little too far, just to show that one is free of it oneself. I suppose it's the result of a bad conscience." "Sometimes one has a bad conscience just because one belongs to the so-called upper classes, though one can't help one's birth any more than the so-called lower classes can. Ridiculous, isn't it?" "Isn't it because . . ." father began, and we should certainly have launched into a long argument if I had not said I was busy and had to be off. Lutz Fechter certainly made an excellent impression. With his tall, slim figure, his excellent manners, his reticence, and his curt, decisive way of expressing himself he made a great hit with father. After he had left, father described him as the ideal German soldier—"I might even say the very quintessence of soldierliness," he added. He said that the latent qualities in our people (I could never help smiling when father used the phrase "our people," of whom he spoke as if he were not part of them himself) somehow or other always broke through, as they had done in his case. He struck father as the kind of man who could become the founder of a new family; in the old days he would certainly have been ennobled. "But he has been," I pointed out. "He has been, in the new manner. Hasn't he been awarded the Knight's Cross?"

"Yes, of course," said father, "you're quite right; I didn't think of that. All respect to him! I think old Heinrich must have resembled him in many ways when he was a young man, though he was more temperamental, of course." "I think Joachim is probably much more like him." "Joachim? Are you suggesting that seriously? He's nothing but a windbag." Father could not have paid Lutz a higher compliment than by comparing him to our ancestor, the legendary Heinrich, who was the object of father's greatest pride and joy —and also, perhaps, of a certain amount of envy. Did he not stand for everything my father lacked? A swashbuckler ennobled by Emperor Frederick II, his shadow hung heavy over innumerable generations of our family down to the present day, even dwarfing that of another famous ancestor of ours, Otto Wilhelm, who was one of Frederick the Great's generals. Personally I have always been inclined to regard Heinrich as something more in the nature of a successful robber baron or brigand chief; but, if it gave father pleasure to think highly of him and admire him, why should I spoil his pleasure? Father made a similar mistake about Lutz, and that was a rather more serious matter. Father was a captain in the reserve, but was unfit for active service because of his stiff leg, and now he was able to bask a little in the reflected glory of the young winner of the Knight's Cross, particularly as the latter had the gift of listening modestly and politely while father related his own war experiences instead of dismissing them with a shrug as did so many young officers (including Joachim), who believed the First World War to have been a picnic. In my opinion the great Heinrich would not have had this gift; he would certainly have boasted continually of his own deeds, and reacted with the manners of his time to anyone who dared try to compete with him. I saw more clearly than my father, and the first thing that I noticed was the unconcealed and possessive look of admiration in the captain's eyes. This gave me no pleasure. True, I quite liked him and rather admired him (were we not brought up to admire manly courage and were not our traditions based on warlike deeds?), but that was all. Lutz was not fit to hold a candle to Heinrich. That uncanny, terrifying, self-discipline of his! That, and his cold, dispassionate determination had brought him success, and he tried to conquer me in the same way. Old Heinrich would have set about it cleverly and skillfully and, if all else failed, would simply have laid me across the crupper of his horse and galloped off with me, or locked me up in a tower. And, if even that failed, he would pretty soon have found consolation elsewhere. Was he a man to spend sleepless nights because of some stupid woman? After all, there were plenty of others. Or perhaps I might even have ended by giving in to him, for can one withstand a really violent assault forever? But there was nothing like that about Lutz. Karl was much more like Heinrich. Had he not bent Joachim and Otto to his will, organized an air raid, and caused the lights of the whole town to go out? No young woman can help feeling flattered when a man tells her she is the only woman in the world for him, but there are many ways in which those words can be spoken. Everything depends not only on who says them but on how he says them, even if his intentions are entirely honorable. Lutz Fechter took me out a few times; we went to the opera, and he never gave me the slightest hint that he had any intentions; perhaps he just relied on his personality and reputation to make an impression. But I would not have been a woman if I had not known that sooner or later a proposal would come. This saddened and depressed me, and prevented me from taking

pleasure even in the envious glances of other women and girls when I walked through the foyer on the arm of this impressive-looking winner of the Knight's Cross; and I could not make up my mind what was wrong with him, what it was that put me off. He proposed to me during his next leave. In the meantime he had been promoted to major. It was hard to say no, not only because I knew how much it would hurt him—I noticed the way he looked at me when he asked me to be his wife—but also because he was the son of our former caretaker. I also had a bad conscience because of my family and all its traditions; agreeing to marry him would have demonstrated my freedom from prejudice. "Is it because—of the old days?" he asked. I took a long time to answer: "No, it's not because of that." "But?" "If I were in love with you, I wouldn't care if you were a Zulu." (This of course was a slight exaggeration.) "Well, if that's all it is!" he said, with a sigh of relief, though he didn't completely believe me. "In that case it's not final. I love you." He paused, and then without looking at me and in a tone of voice that made me start back in alarm, he said: "I want you, I want you to marry me, and in the end you will marry me." It was not love that made him speak like that, and for a long time I was puzzled. Not till Karl told me that he loved me did I understand. The difference was that Karl loved and wanted me, but Lutz just wanted what I stood for in his eyes. Marrying me would have set the seal on his rapid ascent and his success in life. In his own way he may have loved me, but at heart he wanted to marry the only daughter of the family whose caretaker his father had been. When I realized this I at last understood what his mother had meant when she said that this was a new age, and that it wouldn't be long now.

IX "You are beautiful!" the doctor said and looked at her. "My God, so beautiful!" "I love you very much!" she whispered, and did not think of his scar when she pressed against him, and he hardly felt the pain. Her neck was fragrant and smelled of his kisses and her eyes were bottomless and dark like a mountain lake. He stood at the edge of the lake, no one was to be seen or heard, the lake was dark, calm, with a few flowers and water lilies along its shores; a breathless quiet came over him, filled him; it was as if he had stepped out of the lake, out of its dark, unknown depths. What was hidden down there? The wind rustled in the treetops, nothing else moved, there was only the wind and_the calm and the lake. He ran toward the lake and bent over the water and suddenly had the wish to let himself fall into it. What was hidden down there? He fell into her eyes and searched and asked and found and a new question and a new answer and no answer, dark and bottomless. More, she thought, please ... it hurts a little, you are heavy, I came to you, take me, take me, I love you, I love you, I love you. Please, come to me. Words, thoughts, desire, he, and always the same wish, it should last for all eternity, he should stay, with her, always, completely, O God, how much she loved him!

"When shall we get married? Tomorrow?" Karl muttered a little later. "Silly," she said. "Things can't be done as quickly as that." Tomorrow, she said to herself, you will go home and wait, and sometime or other they will come and take you away. To a concentration camp? Will they, . . . "Why not?" he said. "We're both grown up, and we've both got birth certificates and identity cards. What else does one need?" "A whole lot of things. For one thing a certificate of Aryan blood." "That I haven't got. And you won't need one. Anyone can see from a mile away that you're a pure Aryan. I'm not the same, of course. I'm a subman." "You're a robber baron," she said. "Heinrich II." "Who was Heinrich I?' "Oh, let me see, he died eight or nine hundred years ago." "You're wrong, I'm a gypsy. Eper mankes chusmaromara." "What's that?" "That's gypsy language, and it means: I'm mad about you, you're the light of my life, I want to drown in your eyes." "Does it say all that?" "Yes, gypsies are fine people. They talk very little but say a great deal. Where are my cigarettes?" He got up and lit a cigarette from the candle. Then he lay back again on the bed. "Will you have to—go back?" she asked after a time. "Where?" he asked, though he knew quite well what she meant. As she did not reply, he said eventually: "No, I don't think so. They have made quite a nice mess of me. If I had got to a hospital faster I shouldn't be limping now, or at any rate not as badly." "Never mind that, I'm very-grateful for your limp; it means that you won't have to go back." "Come, come!" he said. "And what about all those walking tours we were going on? Didn't you say that you liked to walk?" "No, never. We'll go by car. Walking is too tiring. Why weren't you taken to a hospital more quickly? How did it happen?" "Oh, that's a long story," he said. "I'll tell you some other time." "No," she said. "Tell me about it now." "In your place I shouldn't ask too many questions," he said, with a trace of anger. "It's a bad thing to be told too much all at once." "I can take it." "I know you can, but that's not the point." She realized what was in his mind and said: "You won't have to go back again; there's no reason why you shouldn't tell me." In the town to which Puhlmann had taken him, he began, there were too many wounded and too few vehicles, and everyone wanted to get out at the same time. Our troops were still holding a narrow corridor, including the railway line and the road, but that was the only gap in the Russian ring. There was complete chaos. All honor to the wounded, of course, but they had become a liability, and priority had to be given to those able to fight. A great many wounded men must have been left behind. In such cases a medical officer and a few orderlies were ordered to remain

behind with them and wait for the Russians. If they were lucky, they were well treated, and if not, not. Often, of course, they were unlucky. I was taken to the station (he went on), and there I lay on a stretcher all night in a long row of other stretchers. A thousand or two thousand men were lying there, many of them on the bare stone platform. Toward morning a train came in at last, and we were lifted into it; not all of us, of course, there were too many for that. The floor of the car was covered with straw, and it would have been quite comfortable if it hadn't been overcrowded. The car was shut from the outside, and after a time we moved off. There were only four or five medical orderlies for the whole train, and something must have happened to them during the journey, because they did not come to us the whole time. Perhaps they decided that, as it was impossible for them to deal with,-a"thousand wounded men, there was no point in doing anything at all. The train went on and stopped, and went on and stopped, and sometimes we heard the sound of firing, and once a machine-gun burst made a lot of little holes in the top of the car, but too high for anyone to be hit. We could tell from the little grating at the top whether it was night or day. Nobody came near us, and we had nothing to eat or drink. The necessities of nature had to be carried out where we were, and most of us were severely wounded and could not move. Once the train was attacked by Russian aircraft, and we remained stationary for a long time. We hammered on the walls and shouted, and heard men in other cars doing the same, but outside everything remained quiet. Eventually the train moved off again; nobody came. Still they did not open the doors, and whenever we heard the train being shunted we hammered on the walls and shouted, but it made no difference. Once panic broke out, and everyone crawled to the door, including some of the severely wounded, and beat on it and howled like animals. But nobody came and opened it. We could tell there were people outside. Why didn't they open the door? I can't believe that there were many trains like that—or, if there were, not "full of German wounded. Perhaps they took us for another kind of train. "What kind?" Elfie asked almost inaudibly. Oh, there were such trains—full of Jews or foreign workers, but mostly of Jews being sent to Germany. I once saw one of them myself. . . . But crawling to the door didn't help them very much, most of those who managed to get there died or were trampled to death by the others. The men on either side of me died, and I envied them, though I was afraid the same would happen to me. A man with an amputated leg began trying to cut through the floor with his pocketknife; and, when a sergeant near me asked him what he was up to, all he said was: "Air!" "But you can't—" "Air!" the man repeated. "You'd do better to save your strength," said the sergeant. "I'm going to make a nice little hole," the man said, and went on with his boring. Then he giggled, and said: "I'm going to make a ventilator. Air!"

He went on boring till the blade of his knife broke, and then he flew into a rage, started sobbing, and lay with his mouth to the shallow hole he had dug, and he stayed like that until the end of the journey. When they came to lift him out we noticed for the first time that he was dead. I don't know how long it lasted. It may have been three or four, or even five days and nights. I had fever and was in severe pain, and time was mostly a kind of thick veil, you understand; though when I was awake I could generally see quite plainly, and the pain was less severe than when I had been with Puhlmann behind the Russian lines, but time was somehow misty, thick, almost tangible. We were unloaded somewhere in eastern Poland. I heard afterward that in some of the cars more than a third of the men had died. When I was taken out into the fresh air, I fainted, as did most of the others. The fresh air hit you like a blow. Everyone shouted for water, and the orderlies dashed about swearing and cursing, with handkerchiefs tied over their faces—I actually saw two of them wearing masks. Again there were too few of them, and we were left lying on the station platform for a long time. The station was barricaded off to keep civilians, as well as troops from the garrison, from seeing us. Eventually we were taken to a barracks that had been turned into a hospital and we were laid in a long row in the yard. Most of us were too weak even to groan or shout, and most of us did not even want to; we felt we were in paradise—hadn't we been given water to drink and wasn't there fresh air to breathe? The fact that it was drizzling slightly didn't worry us; on the contrary, it was refreshing, though we were shivering with cold. There were still very few medical orderlies. They did their best; but, however much they ran themselves off their feet, there were simply far too few of them. "Where are the rest of you?" I asked one of them who was busy with my neighbor, the sergeant. "It's the lunch break," he said. "And the doctors?" "They're in the officers' mess." "Heavens, man, have you all gone crazy?" "Don't get excited. Do you think you're the only wounded who have been brought here?" "You bloody little swine!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Do you know what sort of trip we had?" "I can imagine," the orderly said. "Things are shocking here, too. We haven't slept for days. We're only human, and we've got to eat, haven’t we?" "Where's the officers’ mess?" I asked, and he pointed it out. It was the long, low building with a row of big windows immediately in front of us. When he moved on, I asked the sergeant to lend me his pistol. "What for?" "I want a little shooting practice," I said. "I didn't get any at the front." "You're crazy," he said, but he willingly gave me his pistol. He grinned, and actually charged the magazine for me. It was enormous fun, and everyone who saw what was happening shouted with joy. I took careful aim at one of the windows, and fired. I aimed high, because I wanted the bullet to hit the ceiling, but I'm not sure that I even hit the window, because my hand was trembling too much.

Then I fired at the second window, and then the third, and so on until the magazine was empty. I asked the sergeant for more ammunition, but it wasn't necessary. The officers came buzzing out of the building like a swarm of bees and dashed round in excited circles until they found out where the firing had come from. "Who's been firing?" shouted the senior medical officer. "I have." "Have you gone mad? You might have hit somebody!" "I'm very sorry I didn't," I said, and the others laughed. He was blue in the face, and muttered something about a court-martial. "The sooner the better," I answered. "Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to give a full account of our reception here to a court-martial." "Court-martial yourself," the others shouted delightedly. "We'll discuss this later, we'll discuss this later," he muttered, and went off and did not come back. I never saw him again. A little later another medical officer gently reproached me for my outrageous behavior. He said he could well understand our impatience, but that did not really justify the use of firearms. The sergeant asked whether he knew how we had come here. "By train, as usual, I suppose," the medical officer replied; whereupon the sergeant explained to him that it had not been quite as usual. This was the third time he had been wounded; and, if he had had any hand grenades with him, he would have thrown them, and nobody could possibly have blamed him. He was going to make an official complaint, via the proper channels, and in it he would point out that all the medical officers here had remained in their mess while men were dying outside. The wrangle continued in this fashion for some time, and the medical officer became nervous and said that he would give orders immediately have the two of us put in a special room. The sergeant said there was no question of his being put in a special room; he insisted on remaining with the others; and I did, too. So we and the other men from our car were put in a big yard, and great efforts were made to conciliate us, and we naturally took full advantage of the opportunity; the poor doctors and medical orderlies were run off their feet. After that I got very friendly with the sergeant. He had had both legs amputated, one above and one below the knee, and in the car he behaved more courageously than anyone else; he even told us a number of stories that were not bad at all. The pistol episode was never mentioned again. The officers would have liked to get even with me, but were obviously afraid that I would talk. I was operated on again there, but they didn't really know what to do with my wound, and so after five days I was sent on, this time in a hospital train with white sheets and nurses—first class, so to speak; it was wonderful. I had forgotten that that sort of thing existed. I was sent to the Charite in Berlin, where my professor started chopping me about. He took me with him when he was transferred here, and I'm working with him now. When I was in Berlin I wrote to my mother, because I thought she might be able to come to see me, but a neighbor answered and said that she couldn't come, because she was dead; she had been killed in an air raid. I'd like to know what there was to bomb in a remote, out-of-the-way corner like that.

After a while he said: "Now I've got you." "Yes," said Elfie. "I don't think I'll have to go back again. I'm indispensable where I am; at any rate the old man thinks so. I want to specialize, and the old man's influence is useful; he took me on before my time. Sometimes I get very tired when I have to stand for a long while, but that will pass. We must go out dancing sometime." "Yes," she said, and thought herself very stupid for being unable to restrain her tears. She turned her head away, but he saw, and asked her-why she was crying. He said that it was stupid, now that it was all over. She hugged him so tight that it hurt him, but he said nothing. He lay there with closed eyes and the pain went away again, and they lay there -Together and secure. He I shouldn't have told her all that. If I have to go back, she'll remember it, and it will make it more difficult for her to bear and she'll be thinking about it the whole time. Why on earth did I tell her? She Why does he tell me so little? He ought to tell me everything. I want to find out everything about him, but that is something that I shall never do; I shouldn't even try. Everyone has his secrets. There are some things that even father doesn't talk to me about. Perhaps Therese didn't have any secrets from me. How many days was he in that car without water? I mustn't think about it. I mustn't think about that, or about father, but about him, Karl, as he is now, with me. He came through. He's lying here just like a child. Is he asleep? He "Gentlemen," said the major, "our task is to cover the withdrawal of the division. Recently there have been a number of incidents revealing a shocking deterioration of discipline. In all such cases I shall act sternly and ruthlessly." Did he use the word "court-martial"? Yes. "I shall make it my business to see that cowardice in the face of the enemy is punished by court-martial." The idiot. Court-martial. The Knight's Cross. Or had he got the Oak Leaves by now? All the same, but for him ... I wonder what happened to Hildebrandt. Vanished, I wonder where. "What have you done to me?" said Fink. He's a eunuch. She What is a man's world like? Why does he do all this, why do they? Joachim said, "We do it because we are men. We've always been a little crazy. That is our fate and our pride. We invented the ax and the plow and gunpowder and letters, war and poetry and the airplane, so we could earth, and we will travel to the stars, but one should never ask: Why? That's how it is. We have

to. Satisfied?" AndKarl: "Why shouldn't we get married tomorrow?" Tomorrow . . . tomorrow I will go back home and wait, and they will come and get me. "Have you been dreaming?" Elfie asked. "No. Why? I've been asleep." "You started so violently." "Did I? That's nothing, I've done it ever since I was a boy " "Are you in pain?" "No. What's the time?" She fumbled for her watch, and said: "Half past twelve." "Already? I thought it was only ten." She In the old days you used to hear the chimes, particularly at night. But there are no chimes now. The bells have been melted down and turned into guns or tanks. Why is it so quiet outside? Nowadays it's never as quiet as it used to be. Why is it so quiet tonight? You lay in your bed, and outside it was very quiet, and you couldn't go to sleep, and you heard the clock strike eleven, twelve, one, and for the first time in your life you decided to take a sleeping pill, and you felt very sorry for yourself, and at the same time you felt very grown up and proud, suffering from insomnia. And when you got a glass of water to wash the pill down with you stopped at the wardrobe, and opened it, and looked at the window to make sure the shutters were closed, and then you took off your nightgown and spent a long time looking at yourself in the mirror. You liked yourself in the mirror, your breasts were firm and round, a bit too small, perhaps, but never mind, you were only seventeen, your hips were nice and your thighs long and slender. You liked yourself, and wondered what it would be like if a man took you in his arms just as you were now, standing naked in front of the mirror, and you got hot and restless and moved away from the mirror, and put on your nightgown, and it was a long time before you went to sleep in spite of the sleeping pill. Harald was in the next room but one, and you wondered whether he was thinking about you as you were thinking about him. He was tall and handsome, and had just promoted to lieutenant. He was a friend of Joachim's and was staying with us at the farm. And if Therese, who was there with us, hadn't kept her eyes open, he would probably have taken you, and you would have let him; you were seventeen, and at seventeen lots of girls had had several men already, and why shouldn't you? At the labor service camp Margot always talked about men every night before she went to sleep, and told us how Tom and Dick and Harry went about it, and she used to hug her pillow and squeak and call out: "My kingdom for a man!" and the others giggled and grew restless. And once Steffi came into your bed, as lots of other girls used to do with one another. She was a good-looking, black-haired creature, and she stroked you and kissed you, and you let her, but next morning you felt ashamed of yourself, and you never let her come near you again. Then Gerhard turned up; you were twenty-two then, and he was the first. But it was quite different, you didn't enjoy it, and couldn't understand why you had gone to his room, and he was very unhappy because you wouldn't go to his room again, and then he went to the front, and soon afterward he was killed, and you reproached yourself for not having been nicer to him, just like in a novel. And now Karl is the second, and it's quite different again, and now I understand why Margot behaved so stupidly. But it isn't just because of that; it's because it's he, it's because it's he, I love him, I love him, I love him.

"Darling," she said. "Mmm?" "Are you asleep?" "No." "You're not to go to sleep." "I don't want to." "You smell of life," he said. "What do you mean?" "I don't know exactly. Earth, rain, spring, fresh, green leaves, grass, cloud, sun, wind; you can smell it quite distinctly. And a great deal of love, too." "Yes, definitely," she said. "You can smell life, just as you can smell death, or fear and terror; everything has its.own smell." "The candle's going out. Have you got another?" she asked. "I think there are two more in the cupboard." She got up and went to the cupboard in the opposite corner of the little room. The flickering candlelight played on her big, lovely body, as her bare feet moved softly over the tiled floor. The smooth curves of her thighs and back, her soft, firm shoulders and long arms and legs, her long, strong hands, long thin neck, and round breasts glowed in the soft light as she opened the cupboard and half turned to Karl. "Where are they?" she said. "On the top shelf." He looked at her and said to himself that she was his, and he could hardly believe it. "You're very beautiful," he said. "You mustn't look at me like that," she said, and turned toward him as she groped for the candles. She found them and brought them back; and, while she put a new one on the flickering flame of the old, said: "But how did you find me?" "It wasn't very difficult. I rang your office, and they told me you were on leave. That annoyed me a bit, but then I went to your house and asked the old lady where you had gone." "And did she tell you?" "Not straight away. But then she told me, and said I must bring you back." "What else did she say?" "All she said was that I must bring you back." "Didn't she say anything about father?" "No." "Really?" "Yes." Actually the old woman, whose eyes were red from weeping, had said that everything was so strange and confusing: her father just sat in his library and wouldn't talk, he just sat staring straight in front of him, and he wouldn't eat, and it touched one to the heart to see him like that.

What could have happened? he wondered. Was it all because of that unlucky evening? Impossible. Or was it? "I'm going home in the morning," said Elfie. "What a shame," he said. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, and with his forefinger he slowly stroked her back, following the line of her backbone down and up and down again as far as the second lumbar vertebra. Here his finger stopped. That's where I was hit, he said to himself, and I shall never -be''able to walk properly again, I shall always have a slight limp. But what did that matter? Then he quickly, almost brutally, pulled her to him and kissed her hungrily! She exclaimed with pain but returned his kiss, their lips would not part, and then he took her.

"Does your father know you're here?" he asked later. "Yes." "Does he know I'm here?" "No." "Are you going to tell him?" "I can't." "Why?" "He has been arrested," she said in a toneless voice.

X Elfie I knew father would not take it easily, but I did not believe he would take it that hard. When I told him after dinner that I wanted to marry Karl, he put down his book and looked as if he had turned to stone. "Have you thought it over properly?" he eventually asked in a cold, impersonal tone that was strange to me. "Yes." "Do you realize what you are doing?" "Yes." "He's not one of us." "There are such people," I said. "No!" he almost shouted. He took a moment to regain his self-control and then went on: "If you had married that Lutz Fechter, it wouldn't have been easy for me; he, too, came from a different world. But the difference between him and us lies only in tradition and birth. His world can become ours. But that's not true of—of him. Never!" "But is our world so terribly desirable?" I asked. He looked at me for the first time. "Yes," he said with emphasis. "It took centuries for us to build it up. I'll never give my consent. I shall do everything in my power to prevent that man

from entering our family." He^s—subversive. Don't you realize that?" His voice became imploring. "Elfie," he said, "don't you see into what an abyss he will drag you? What he stands for is anarchy, nihilism. I remember exactly what he said that evening. Don't you realize that there can be no bridge between him and us? I've cured myself of judging people by what they say, and people are not always to be judged by what they do. But I saw his eyes, and he hates and despises us." His voice grew hard again. "No, you will never marry him. Anyone else you like, but not him, or anyone like him." "And if I marry him all the same?" He remained silent for a long time; and, when he spoke again, it was as if he were talking to himself: "Many things have happened in our family. There were men who cared not a rap for convention or for reasons of state; there were women who broke their marriage vows; there were many aberrations and regrettable incidents. But we lived with history and in it, and some of us helped make it. Some of us were good and some were bad, but it has never occurred to any of us to betray us. You would be the first."

Wilhelm von Carsten I did not at first realize all the implications of what the young doctor said that evening. I did so only afterward. I tended rather to agree with the other gentlemen, the general, for instance, who said angrily: "The young man is a bounder, I'm astonished Joachim associates with people of that sort!" I was also inclined to agree with Professor Winkel, who said: "I am not always in agreement with the Nazis in the meaning they attach to the word 'subversion.' But what that young man says is subversion; subversion of values and ideals that are not just two or three hundreds years' old, but immemorial. Something ought to be done about him." I naturally could not agree with that, and I pointed out that we were not informers. We went on discussing him for some time, until Heinrich, the old professor, summed him up for good and all, as far as I was concerned: "We heard what the young man said, and that was enough for me. War is always ugly. Some wars are necessary, and no war is humane, but the worst thing about this war, so it seems to me now, is that it gives rise to views such as we have just heard. In my opinion, gentlemen, the spread of such opinions is a far graver threat to the future of Germany even than possibility of defeat." I have never been a man to dismiss any problem lightly, and afterward I devoted a great deal of thought to what the young man had said. I tried to understand him. I tried hard to discover what could have led him to form such views. But, from whatever angle I approached the question, the result was always the same; what the professor said seemed only to be confirmed. Well, I said to myself, we are formed by our education, our environment, and our experiences. But the viewpoint from which we observe events depends on ourselves and ourselves alone. The same events or experiences can make a man a saint or its opposite; the direction in which a man is steered depends in the last resort on himself alone.

This young doctor is our real enemy. He is more dangerous than the enemies whom chance throws up in the course of a nation's history. I would even go so far as to say that he is more dangerous than the Bolsheviks who, after all, are in the last resort fighting for their country. Hitherto I have been tempted to believe that the Nazis are the great curse that has descended on Germany (at any rate that is what I have come to believe in the past few years). But now I know that the greatest curse that they have brought down upon our country is that they have caused men such as this young doctor to appear. He is their opposite, and also the opposite of all us Germans who are not Nazis. He is the negation of everything in which we believe. I don't want to gloss over or explain away anything. We ourselves must shoulder the guilt for developments in Germany in recent years. We ourselves produced the Nazis, we of the Stahlhelm, we German Nationalists and many others, who believed we were being loyal to German traditions. I have no desire to exonerate myself. I welcomed the Nazis' uncompromising struggle against the Treaty of Versailles. I admired the measures they took to deal with unemployment and the after effects of the economic crisis, in which we ourselves lost most of our fortune. I felt proud of our international successes, though these were based on force. Like everyone else, with a few exceptions, I welcomed the re-establishment of the German Army, and agreed with the case that the government made for it. The Austrian Anschluss seemed to me to be a continuation of the work of Bismarck and the elimination of a historical anachronism; and the incorporation in the Reich of the Sudetenland I feel to be a courageous and justified act. My criticisms of the Nazis at that time were restricted to their ruthless introduction of the so-called New Order, to the ruthlessness of their claims to power, and to their "leadership principle." I condemned the establishment of concentration camps, and I thought the Nuremberg laws and the burning of the books a regression to barbarism. But I still believed these things to be the mere excrescences of a national revolution, the birth pangs of a new nationalist society, the results of a profound upheaval the first effects of which had been to throw extremists to the top. I believed that with the passage of time all these things would disappear, and that the blood and race ideology would pass into oblivion, together with belief in the German claim to world hegemony. The German people would in due course find its right place in the Western family of nations, nationalist but not obscurantist, proud and free, but not dominating or aggressive. My first doubts arose with the Czech adventure. That was pure aggression. The Polish campaign seemed to confirm my doubts. The tremendous successes of the young Wehrmacht did not blind me to the fact that we had set out on the wrong road. Sometimes, of course, I wondered whether perhaps I was not mistaken. Might this road not be the right road after all? Or might it not just be a different and more brutal road leading more quickly to the same goal? The great victories that we won in Europe appeared to be the government's justification. But our defeat outside Moscow in the winter of 1941-42, and still more the horror of Stalingrad, disposed of my last doubts. No, I had not been mistaken. Subsequent events, the continual retreats, the lost battles and, above all, the deteriorating situation in Germany itself drove me slowly into opposition. But I still tried to be fair. It is easy to be on the winning side, and very difficult to stick to the losers. If I had been satisfied that we were fighting a just war I should have put all my strength into the struggle, even though defeat involved my own ruin.

But I no longer believed that the Nazi way was right or even that it would lead to the desirable goal if the Nazis won the war. The pressure of events can certainly lead to tyranny and evil excrescences. But I began to wonder whether they were only excrescences and not the essence of the system. I ceased,-to believe that moderating influences would lead the revolution into orderly channels. At first I believed that sooner or later we should be called upon to hold the extremists in check, or simply that we should be needed when the extremists came to the end of their tether, but now I knew that this would never happen. The Nazis had depraved and corrupted our ideals and beliefs and turned all that was evil in us into their avowed objectives. We called them forth, we believed in Germany and lived for Germany, and now we were like the sorcerer's apprentice, who could not get rid of the evil spirits he had conjured up. And we had no sorcerer to exorcise the spirits or put them back in their box. We were completely in their hands, and I came to see that they were driving us to destruction, into the abyss, an abyss deeper than that into which the German people had ever been plunged before. Was there really no one who could come to our aid and stop our headlong rush to destruction? I had long talks about all these things with Major Gewaldt, whom I esteemed as a farsighted, clearheaded man. One day he asked me straight out whether I would care to join a group of men who had made up their minds to try to save what still .remained to be saved. He told me that there existed in Germany an organization of officers whose objective it was to get rid of the regime, and above all its strongest man—that is to say, Hitler. "The others are only puppets," he said. "The leadership principle will act like a boomerang. You'll see that when the head is cut off the whole thing will collapse like a house of cards." "What? Now? In the middle of the war?" "When else are we to act? When v/e have lost the war it will no longer be necessary, for the others will do it for us. The whole point is that we must act ourselves. By doing so we shall knock the collective-guilt argument out of the enemy's hands. Do you know the decisions of the Teheran conference?" "Only what I read in the newspapers." "This time the newspapers were right," he said grimly. "Leaving aside all the propaganda, the fact remains that after the war Germany will cease to exist. Or do you still believe that there is a chance -©^winning?" "So what you are proposing is rebellion?" "What I am proposing is a necessary, inevitable, desperate step. You can call it revolt, if you like." "And you think it might succeed?" "It's got to. We have no possible alternative. The fact that I happen to be on Stalin's list of fifty thousand officers to be hanged as war criminals—though I naturally object to being hanged for things I haven't done—has very little to do with it. In the eyes of the enemy I am a Nazi officer. What we have to demonstrate is that we are not Nazi officers, but officers with the courage to fight the evil." He shrugged his shoulders. "At least we must try. It's the only way open to us of bringing the enemy to reason. It is in their own interest, too. They can divide Germany, or wipe it off the map, but they can't kill off seventy million Germans. The Germans will remain, and they will recover—and what sort of feelings will they have toward their conquerors? Hatred

and desire for revenge. None of us is guiltless, of course; but not all of us are criminals, or Gauleiters, or concentration camp guards, or SD men. Being a loyal German does not necessarily mean that you are a Nazi, but that is what they take us to be, and sometimes I think that they are not entirely unjustified. We must demonstrate to them that they are wrong." I chose my words very carefully. "I don't know whether you are right," I said. "I don't know whether it can be right to stab a government in the back in times like these. It has happened before, and—" "That was nothing but an old wives' tale." ". . . and what was the outcome? A republic that was unfit to live. A conglomeration of conflicting interests, claims, and aspirations, but not a state." "Well, and what do you think will become of Germany after the war?" he asked, almost in desperation. "No doubt you are right; probably, it will be even worse this time," I replied. "I appreciate your motives, and I respect them. But I don't think you have drawn the right conclusions. In my opinion the attitude of our enemies should have no influence on an officers' rebellion—and what you are proposing is rebellion. The Allies claim they are fighting only the Nazis, but in my view that's an excuse; the war has given them the opportunity to destroy Germany. Fundamentally it's a matter of complete indifference to them whether it's the Kaiser's Germany or Hitler's. What they want is to rid themselves once and for all this inconvenient country and ^convenient people. You can no longer hold up the course/of events. The gravest thing of all, and the Nazis' greatest mistake, is that we haves undoubtedly thrust a perfectly adequate excuse into the enemy's hands. At first they were fighting only for their skins, but now they want more, they want to finish the job; and I can't see how they can possibly want anything else." I asked for time to consider what Gewaldt said, though I was pretty well satisfied in my own mind that I should decline to take part in the conspiracy. I have never made decisions lightly, and this was one of the hardest I had ever had to face. I could see Gewaldt's point of view, and there was a great deal to be said for it. But was I a man to rebel? Was I a man to stab the German people and the men in the fighting line in the back? At about this time one of my oldest friends came to see me, Major General Ritter von Spaeth, an unusually cultivated man; and he spent a few days with me. He had lost a leg on the eastern front—I think it was toward the end of July, 1943—and now, after a long period of convalescence, he was waiting for new employment. One evening I confided in him. "You're not the only one to be faced with the problem," he said. "The same proposal has been made to me. I remember very plainly the night I spent thinking about it in Russia before I made my decision, and it was a very painful one. You know that one sometimes has moments when one sees things very plainly and clearly and has access to things which one normally has not." "And what were those things?" "I don't know whether here and now I shall find the words to describe them properly," he said. "In any case all this is worlds apart from the material in the book about warfare which I am writing." What he went on to say was something like this: A rebellion is an insurrection against the power that derives from the traditional, established order, which, being established, is that or-

dained by heaven. Submitting to it may be barely tolerable, but to rebel one must be either a Lucifer or a Prometheus. But he was only a general, who derived his authority from his obligation to fight for the legitimate power. "We," he said, "I say we, because I think that I am speaking for you, too, would^patiently and with dignity put up with being chained to the rock and sometimes in rare and terrible moments we recognize the necessity for stealing fire from the gods; but we ourselves would never steal the fire, for doing so is contrary to the established order desired by the gods. And so that night I said to myself that most men were like me, a general in command of a whole division in the battle, who fought for a power with which I was not in agreement. It is only rarely that a Prometheus arises, and when he does we crucify him. I know it, and yet I am the servant who hands the executioner the nail. I declined the invitation to take part in the conspiracy." I did so, too. I tried to explain to Gewaldt why I could not cooperate with him. I did not go as far in my self-condemnation as did the general, but my objections to a Putsch were so deep that I had to say no to him. I don't believe that he really understood me. Subsequently neither of us ever mentioned the subject again. Elfie is my only child, and she is also the last member of what was once a great family. My wife Anny died in giving birth to our second child, a boy, who was born dead. I have never got over the loss, and I always tried to bring up Elfie so that she should be loyal to our family traditions. We have always been Germans and proud of it. No, Nazism is not Germany. It is the extreme in us, just as the Spartacists were the other extreme. At the bottom of the circle the extreme left and the extreme right meet. But the circumference of the circle is long, and the circumference is Germany. Perhaps, as the result of this unhappy war, the other extreme will gain the upper hand; we Germans unfortunately tend to be uncompromising and favor "radical solutions"—and, what is more, we are proud of it. But, whatever the outcome, whatever the solution may be, the circle will remain. I am a part of it; and Elfie must remain a part of it, too. But the doctor does not form part of it. I listened to what he said, and I saw his eyes. He is a stranger to us. He belongs elsewhere, to another circle, one that to me is unintelligible, incomprehensible, and seems to me to be inevitably destined to lead to ruin and disaster. Perhaps he is the future, but I have no desire to play any part in such a future. And I shall do everything in my power to prevent Elfie from belonging to it.

Elfie For perhaps the first time in my life I was unable properly to understand father's train of thought. Had what Karl Said really been so criminal? Had he not the same right to his opinions as everybody else? And was this not a human right on which father always insisted? And was not the Nazi denial of this fundamental human right one of the chief things that turned him against them? Anarchy . . . nihilism . . . how can two people with such different principles possibly live together ... He told me not to talk to him about love . . . said there was no possible bridge between us, and so on and so forth; and that was how he went on trying to persuade me to change my

mind, until I grew indignant and asked him how he could attach importance to such trifles, because I loved Karl and was going to marry him, and that was that. Finally he succeeded in getting me to agree to do nothing in a hurry. I promised not to see Karl for a while and to wait a bit before deciding whether to marry him now or to wait until after the war. The next few days were almost unbearable. I kept my promise, and did not see Karl. Finally I could no longer stand the oppressive atmosphere in the house; that, and the fact that Karl was living in the same town and that I could have seen him at any moment, made the situation intolerable. So I ended by asking my chief for a week's leave; and, as he was an old acquaintance of the family, he gave it to me. "Where are you going, Elfie?" he asked. "To the farm. I'll bring you a few bottles of wine." "I see—bribery and corruption, is it?" "Of course!" "What wouldn't one do for the sake of a good bottle? Are you going alone or with your father?" "I'm going alone this time." "Well, have a good time." I went home, packed, told Therese, and went in to say good-by to father. "I'm going away," I said. "Away? Where?" When I saw his pale, tired face and the deep shadows under his eyes it wrung my heart. "I'm taking a week's leave," I said. "I'm going to the farm." "And then?" I said nothing. "Are you going . . . alone?” "Yes." Then I began to cry, and he stroked my head, as he used to do when I went to him with a cut knee, or whatever it was, and wanted consolation. "Perhaps it's a good thing for you to go away for a bit," he said. "After all, you can come back whenever you like." I walked out softly, as if I were walking out of a sickroom, closed the door behind me, took my coat from the wardrobe, picked up my bag, and left. No sound came from the library when I went onto the porch, and again I had a sense of finality. Was this really a parting? The house seemed quiet and strange when I walked down the path to the gate. The gravel crunched under my feet. It was the same as it had always been, and yet it was quite different and quite strange; and part of the difference and the strangeness was that I knew that father was watching me from behind the curtain, which was something he had never done. I knew he was watching me, but I did not turn. The garden gate creaked and closed behind me with a click. The door of the little hotel on the other side of the road opened; two soldiers came out, stopped, looked at me, one of them said something, and both laughed. Two small boys went by on roller skates, imitating the noise of an automobile engine.

On my right were iron fences and lilac bushes. A girl went by on a bicycle, and a boy in uniform. The windows of the Graudenz family villa were closed; their two sons had been killed, and they could no longer bear living in the house where the boys had grown up. Behind me I heard the heavy footsteps of the two soldiers, and I walked faster. A dog barked behind the iron fence, and a voice called out:"Peter!" A truck drove by, leaving a trail of blue, stinking smoke from its wood-burning engine. There were the boys on roller skates again; one day they'd end up under a car. Don't be silly, I said to myself, why are you in this dismal state? You haven't said good-by forever, you're just going to the farm, as you have so often done before. The estate agent will twinkle at you as usual with his little eyes, and his wife will bake the usual cake. "How thin you are! Oh, well, we'll soon fatten you up," she'd say, and the agent would begin grumbling as usual and say that he was only an old man with one arm and couldn't work as he used to in the old days, and the Frenchmen didn't exhaust themselves either. The "Frenchmen" were Andre, a Marseilles dock laborer who had worked for us for four years as a prisoner of war and had cheerful eyes and a mouth organ, and Stephen, a British farm laborer (the agent called all the prisoners of war who worked on the farm "French") who went about his work quietly and industriously and wrote a long letter home every Sunday, though he knew it would never arrive. There were two or three more anonymous faces, foreign workers with hatred in their eyes, and the Ukrainian girl, Vanyusha, who sang all the time whether she was feeding the pigs or working in the vineyard. "When war over I marry Andre, we go Paris, compris?" she always said, followed by a peal of delighted laughter. I told myself that I was going there as I had so often done before, and after a few days I would go home again, and father would understand. All the same I knew perfectly well that this wasn't true. I was sure of it, and in vain I wondered why. I walked on quickly, with the footsteps of the two soldiers behind me, and then took a streetcar to the station. My forebodings were correct. It was good-by.

XI "What? Arrested?" The doctor sat up in bed. "What happened? Why didn't you tell me before?" "Therese telephoned and told me. They took him away early this morning." "But why?" "Why? Why? How can one know why anybody is arrested nowadays? How can one know what goes on in the minds of those people?" "But there must be a reason." "It may be connected with the attempt on Hitler's life." "Was your father connected with that?" "No. I know positively that he had nothing whatever to do with it. But there have been many arrests—" "People they want out of the way," said the doctor. "Gewaldt often came to our house. He was arrested two or three days after the attempt."

"And you think—" "No. Not he. He's not a man who would denounce or incriminate anyone." "Who could it be, then?" "I don't know. Therese told me that the senior burgomaster was arrested the same morning. People are being arrested, locked up, disappearing mysteriously all the time, and, if one or other of them occasionally comes back, he’s a changed man—silent, nervous, and terrified. What is happening all around us, tell me, what is happening all around us?"' He gave no answer. What was he to say? Did he know? "It might have been Lisa," Elfie said thoughtfully after a time. "Therese told me that she threatened to denounce us when she heard that we wanted to get married." "What Lisa?" "She's the mother of a major who wanted to marry me." "What major?" "Major Fechter. He's the son of our—" "Lutz Fechter?" "Yes. Do you know him?" "Has he the Knight's Cross?" "Yes." "He was my battalion commander. And you gave him the brush-off?" "Yes." "But what has that to do with his mother?" "Lutz is her demigod. Whatever he wants she wants, too. She gave up her whole life to him, her love for him is just not human." "He of all people," said the doctor. Then he went on: "We must do something. Don't you know anybody with some influence with those people, a Gauleiter or somebody of the sort?" "No." "Neither do I. But we must do something." But what? He was facing a stone wall. Where was he to turn? The Gestapo, he said to himself, or the SD. What was hidden behind the wall? In the end he had to confess that he was helpless and knew of no way to help Elfie's father. "We've got to do something," he repeated, but only to cheer Elfie, who was looking up at him like a small child who had come for help and consolation and had a small gleam of hope in her eyes. But he was unable to deceive her. He saw the gleam of hope fade and disappear, he put his arms around her and rested his head gently on her bosom. They went on sitting in silence with their arms around each other, and both felt reality grimly taking possession of their little dream world, and they were only two small and helpless human beings with terror in their hearts.

XII Cologne, August 5, 1944 My darling son Lutz,

Today I am afraid I have some bad news for you, and I hope that you won't take it too hard. Elfriede von Carsten is not worth your wasting a moment's regret on. Therese has told me that while you have been fighting on the eastern front she has got involved with a man and wants to marry him. He is a medical officer, Captain Karl Braun, who works in the military hospital here. I did not let you know this before, because I wanted to be absolutely certain before telling you the news, as I know how much it will hurt you. I have been following her movements carefully for your sake, and have known for a long time that she was going about with the man, and once I saw them at night behaving in an absolutely shameless manner. It was a great blow to me, too, because it was always my wish that you should marry her, and I always encouraged you in the idea. For me, too, it is a terrible disappointment; but I console myself with the thought that these people are not worth wasting a single tear on. We shall find a way out together. The times are hard, but fortunately they are such that people of that kind no longer count. In these days it is only ability that counts, and in that respect as in every other you are superior to them all. I must also tell you that I have taken the necessary steps to show these people that we are not to be led around by the nose any longer or treated as inferiors as in the old days. You will be pleased to hear that father is better and has returned to duty in the Volkssturm, in which he is a sergeant and platoon commander. From your loving mother

Cologne, August 5, 1944 Dear Sir, I regard it as my duty as a good German, devoted to our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, who was miraculously saved by providence from the dastardly attempt to assassinate him made by criminal enemies of the people, to inform you of the following: The house of Herr Wilhelm von Carsten is the meeting place of certain criminal enemies of the people, including Major Gewaldt, who has recently been arrested as I have read in the newspapers, because he was a member of the treacherous clique responsible for the criminal onslaught on our Fuhrer. I am prepared to testify to this on oath at any time. Herr Wilhelm von Carsten and his daughter Elfriede have often made treacherous remarks about our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, calling him a megalomaniac, and they have also made derogatory remarks about other leading personalities. I am willing to testify to this at any time in the People's Court, and I am convinced that I am acting in this matter in accordance with the wishes of my son, Lieutenant Colonel Lutz Fechter, winner of the Knight's Cross, who is valorously resisting the assaults of enemy hordes on the eastern front while criminals and traitors engage in subversion at home. Heil Hitler! Elisabeth Fechter

XIII

The first light of dawn was visible through a gap in the faded blackout paper on the little window when Elfie started out of her doze with a wildly beating heart. No; she was not mistaken. Someone was banging on the front door of the inn, and she knew at once what that meant. She woke Karl, and they were both dressed by the time three men wearing leather jackets entered the room. Elfie had removed the blackout paper and thrown a blanket over the bed. "Are you Elfriede von Carsten?" one of the men said. "Yes," said Elfie. She was now very calm and composed again. "May I ask the meaning of this—" the doctor began, but the second man shouted at him to shut up and asked for his papers. "By what right—?" the doctor went on, but the first man told him to produce his papers and not make a nuisance of himself. The doctor produced his pavbook. and the second man noted down his name and particulars. Before he started writing, he wet the pencil point on his tongue. “Are you ready?” She was combing her hair in front of the mirror with slow, jerky movements, and the men waited silently for her to finish. Then she fetched her handbag fro the chest of drawers, opened it, and said to the first man, who took a step forward as if he wanted to stop her: “You’ve no need to be nervous, I haven’t got a pistol with me.” Her voice sounded mocking and very superior. She took from her bag a tiny, worn Teddy bear, with one ear and one glass eye missing, and handed it to the doctor. “I always used to sleep with it when I was a little girl,” she said. “And now you sleep with bigger bears, don’t you?” the third man said, and the doctor shouted: “You keep your dirty mouth shut!” "Don't!" said Elfie. She stood on tiptoe and kissed the doctor's mouth and eyes, while he stood there as if turned to stone, clasping the Teddy hear in his hands. He was still standing there when they left the room, the first man in front, followed by Elfie and then the two others. When the third man reached the doorway, he turned and gave the doctor a long, searching look. Not till he heard their footsteps on the stairs did he rush to the door and shout: "I'll get you out, Elfie, I'll get you out!" She did not answer, and he stood there listening until the front door slammed. He went on standing there for a long time, and then went back into the room and sat on the bed, staring at the open door and holding the little Teddy bear in both hands.

XIV On January 16, 1945, Wilhelm von Carsten collapsed from exhaustion after climbing the death steps at the end of his day's work in the quarry of the Mauthausen concentration camp. After the long trail of prisoners had passed, an SS guard struck him on the head with an iron bar. The guard was barely twenty years old, and his face remained impassive. He had no need to make sure that the prisoner was dead; he knew from experience how hard to hit in order to crack a skull.

The body was left lying where it was for several hours and was frozen stiff by the time a prisoner from the corpse collecting squad tied a rope round its shoulders and dragged it behind him up the stony, icy path to the camp. The prisoner was exhausted, hungry, and shivering with cold; and, thought the body was not heavy, dragging it was almost beyond his strength. Several times he slipped and fell, cursing the body he held responsible for his via crucis. He dragged it through the camp gate and across the long, empty, and deserted parade ground toward the incinerator, and then down the steps, where he handed it over to two other prisoners, whose job it was to see to the incineration of the bodies. "At least it's nice and warm here," he said to them;but, as he spoke Polish and the other two were French and consequently did not understand, they did not answer. A peasant woman, after finishing her day's work late that evening, stood outside her cottage on the plain on the other side of the Danube and looked up into the sky. She inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to guess whether it was going to snow. She shivered, and drew her woolen shawl closer around her shoulders; and, before she went back into the cottage, she caught sight of the red glow over the hills to the north. "Something's up over there again, the whole sky's red," she said to her daughter when she went back into the room. Her daughter was sitting near the stove, knitting; she was in an advanced state of pregnancy and her face was tired and spotty; this, her mother said, meant that she was going to have a son, but that was no consolation, for her husband had been killed in action four months previously. "When there's a north wind the stink reaches all the way to here," the younger woman said, without looking up from her work.

Part III THE CRACK-UP

Encounters From the Fuhrer's Headquarters, April 16, 1945: To the troops on the German eastern front. For the last time our Jewish-Bolshevik mortal enemy is attacking with his masses. His aim is the destruction of Germany and the extermination of our people. You soldiers on the eastern front are already to a great extent aware of the fate threatening German women, girls, and children. The old men and the children will be murdered while the women and girls will be turned into barracks whores. The remainder will be sent to Siberia. We foresaw this thrust, and since January everything has been done to build up a strong front. Massive artillery receives the enemy. Innumerable units have made good the losses of our infantry. Our front has been strengthened by emergency units and new formations and the Volkssturm. This time the Bolshevik will undergo the old fate of Asia, that is, he must and will bleed to death before the capital of the German Reich. Anyone who fails to do his duty at this moment is a traitor to our people. Any regiment or division that abandons its position is acting in such a shameful manner that it is disgraced in the face of the women and children who stand up to the terror bombing raids on our cities. Beware above all of the few treacherous officers and men who, to save their wretched lives, or are in Russian pay, or perhaps even in German uniform, will try to fight against us. Anyone who gives you an order to retreat is, unless you know exactly who he is, to be put under immediate arrest and, if necessary, to be killed on the spot, no matter what his rank. If in the days and weeks to come every soldier on the eastern front does his duty, the last assault of Asia will collapse, just as the invasion of our enemies in the West also will ultimately fail in spite of everything. Berlin remains German. Vienna will become German again, and Europe will never be Russian. Form a dedicated community sworn to the defense, not of the empty idea of the fatherland but to the defense of your homes, your womenfolk, your children, and therewith our future. In this hour the whole German people has its eyes on you, my troops on the eastern front, and its hopes that the Bolshevik assault will drown in a blood bath, thanks to your steadfastness, your fanaticism, your weapons, and your leadership, depend on you. This moment, when fate has removed from the earth the greatest war criminal of all times,* will be the turning point of this war. Adolf Hitler (* The reference is to the death of President Roosevelt)

The Doctor After the Russian fighter-bombers' first attack the ambulance zigzagged violently for a few yards. Then the nearside wheels plunged into the ditch and we turned over.

The driver was dead. A machine-gun bullet, or it might have been a shell fragment, had smashed in the left half of his skull, and his big body lay on top of me and Corporal Wehner, the medical orderly. We had filled the gas tank just before setting out, and I thought the vehicle would burst into flames at any moment. While struggling to free myself I listened for the sound • of flowing gas, but all I could hear was shrieks from the back of the vehicle and Wehner cursing. Then the men at the back started hammering on the partition separating them from the driver's cabin. I managed to struggle half free. The dead man's body sagged; and as I groped for the handle to open the door, I tried to avoid looking at his shattered skull. "My hand!" Wehner yelled. The hammering went on, and through the shrieks of the wounded I heard a voice shouting shrilly: "Let us out! Let us out!" As I had almost expected, the door was jammed. I tried to force it open with my shoulder, but had no proper leverage, so I put my foot against the driver's body and tried again. That was better. I ignored the stabbing pain in my back, as well as the fact that my boot was pressing into the unresisting body of the dead man, and it was almost with pleasure that I felt the strength of my muscles against the jammed door. Wehner started yelling; something must have been hurting him; but I ignored that, too. I had to open the door at the back and get out the wounded. The fighter-bomber now made its second attack, and soon afterward the vehicle started burning. "Christ, we're on fire, Christ we're on fire," Wehner muttered. He spoke very softly, but I heard what he said much more plainly than the shrieks of the wounded, or my own heavy breathing, or the hammering on the partition, or the rapidly fading whine of the Russian aircraft. Over my head I caught a glimpse of the sky through the smashed windshield; there was a patch of bright blue between the clouds. I made a supreme effort and flung myself at the door with all my strength. There was a metallic crash, Wehner shrieked again, I heard a kind of groan coming from my own half-open mouth, dots and circles swam in front of my eyes, and the door sprang open. "Your hand!" I shouted to Wehner, and his bloodstained hand appeared through the doorway. I seized it and tugged, and out he came like a jack-in-the-box. The driver's body sagged down again, I jumped onto the roadway with Wehner behind me, and we dashed round to the back of the burning ambulance. The rear door was already open, but only one man had got out; Grenadier Rotzinsky, or some such Polish-sounding name. He was crawling about the embankment looking for something, dragging his heavily bandaged leg behind him as if it did not belong to him, and calling out "My glasses! My glasses!" in a plaintive, high-pitched voice. He blinked shortsightedly up at me and went on hunting for his glasses, and the thought shot through my mind that somewhere I had seen something like this before, though I could not place the incident. Inside the vehicle the wounded—groaning, cursing, yelling, calling for help—were in a hopeless tangle of bandaged limbs. A corporal with a bandaged head was halfway out, and under the bandage his face was red and distorted with the effort he was making to free his leg. I grabbed his arms and pulled, and out he came. He shouted into the vehicle: "Keep still, you damn fools!" "The damn fools!" he said to me. "I'll help you."

Behind my back I heard Wehner saying that his hand was done for, and the grenadier who was hunting for his glasses repeated that he had got to find them. What the devil did that remind me of? But I had to get into the vehicle. "They'll kill each other," said the corporal. I clambered in. The ambulance was intended for six, or at most eight, wounded men. At the beginning of the trip we had twelve. Ten were still inside, struggling in inextricable confusion, tangled in the stretchers, getting in each other's way, all struggling to get out at once, and dragging me farther inside, where the air was already full of smoke. We managed to get out five. With the sixth our efforts were wasted, because he had been killed by one of the fighter-bomber's bullets. The seventh man whom I tried to pull out was dead, too; I discovered it in time and left him where he was. Then my breath gave out, and I struggled out as best I could. I wiped my burning, streaming eyes with my hands and held back the corporal, who wanted to clamber in to take my place. Voices were shrieking far at the back, next to the partition wall adjoining the driver's cabin, which was completely in flames. "The sergeant!" exclaimed the corporal. I took a deep breath and clambered in again. Some blankets were on fire, and I burned my hands throwing them out, but felt hardly any pain. I groped my way forward to where the shrieks were coming from—there had ceased to be anything human about them. I touched something very hot with the palm of my hand and started back, and from behind me I heard the corporal's voice shouting: "Come out, sir, come out!" Then I grabbed a boot and pulled, but it wouldn't come, the body must be stuck. I knew I should not be able to hold my breath much longer, pulled furiously, staggered back with an empty boot in my hands, plunged forward again, found a foot, then a second foot, and tugged as hard as I could. Two hands seized my body from behind and started pulling me backward, but I went on clinging desperately to the feet. The air escaped from my lungs, I inhaled, and found myself outside, sitting on the grass, gasping for breath, and coughing convulsively. There was an explosion in the burning vehicle. Slowly I rose to my feet, and could not at once understand what this burning ambulance was doing here, but then my memory returned and I asked whether we had got him out. "The sergeant's out," said the corporal. The mist all round me slowly lifted, I wiped my streaming eyes and then heard the yelling. "The gas tank has exploded," said Wehner. "Who's still inside?" "You got the sergeant out, sir," said the corporal. "Who's still inside?" "Link and Springer. There's nothing to be done." "It'll soon be over," said Wehner. The yelling in the vehicle was gradually drowned by the crackling of the fire and eventually died away altogether, and the corporal said: "That was Springer. Link was unconscious the whole time." "One of them was dead," I said. "Then he was lucky," said Wehner.

We laid the wounded men on the grass edge on the other side of the ditch. The wind blew gusts of heat and black, oily fumes in our faces, and there was a smell of rubber, red-hot metal, burning paint, and burning flesh. The sergeant had come round and started to scream. There was hardly any hope for him or for Pfc. Haeckel, though it was impossible to say for certain; there might be a chance for them if they were operated on quickly. I asked where my bag was, because I needed morphine, syringes, bandages, my instruments; but Wehner shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the burning vehicle. Then he sat down, pressing his wounded hand to his chest and rocking his body to and fro; he was unable to take any interest in anything but his hand. "But—" I began, and stopped, because it wasn't any use. I was still rather dazed and unable to think clearly. The palms of my hands were burning, and my back hurt. Was it going to start all over again? "You're covered with blood, doctor," said the corporal. The red spot on the bandage around his head was slowly growing larger, the stubbly face beneath it was gray and blackened by smoke, and the eyebrows were singed. "Where?" "Everywhere, including your face. Have you been hit?" "I don't think so." I cautiously took out a handkerchief and wiped my burning face. There was another explosion in the burning ambulance —no doubt a hand grenade. Some charred, glowing boards from the side of the vehicle flew across the road, scattering sparks. "Perhaps he'll come back," said Grenadier Mollers. His leg was heavily bandaged and he was very young, probably only seventeen or eighteen. "Who?" "The Russian." "No, he won't," said the corporal. "Why should he?" Mollers rolled over on his belly and began crawling backward into the ditch. When he bumped his wounded foot he started with pain, but made an effort and did not groan. Then he rolled over on his side and finally remained lying face upward. His body slowly sank until it was half buried in the mud. "Better safe than sorry," he said to the others, who were watching him in silence, and he tried to smile. The sergeant was still screaming, and I dealt with him first. I did what I could, but that did not amount to much; I had nothing but a few first-aid field dressings. Last of all I put Wehner's broken arm in a makeshift splint. The road ran past us like a straight, bright, narrow ribbon across the dark-green, slightly undulating plain and in the distance it curved and disappeared behind a low hill. Here the forest did not cling so closely to the road. The sky was overcast, and low clouds with big, black bellies chased each other across it. The air was clear, so clear that you thought you could put out your hand and touch the distant hills. That was where we had to get to, somehow or other. We were alone and all we could do was wait. A truck was bound to come along soon and pick us up. But more than half an hour passed before we saw anything coming.

Then a convoy of trucks crept slowly toward us. I went to the edge of the road and waited. It was going in the wrong direction, toward the distant rumble of the front, where we had come from, but one of the drivers might be able to pass on a message. But to whom? Meanwhile the little convoy—it consisted of four or five vehicles— seemed to be standing still. I tried not to listen to the sergeant's screams. There was nothing I could do for him. The others were quiet. "What's the time?" asked the corporal. "Four o'clock," Wehner replied. "We'll still be here tomorrow morning." "Nonsense!" Mollers, the boy with the leg, groaned. Then he said quietly but distinctly: "I'm freezing. I want to get out. Please give me a hand, somebody." "Help him out, Wehner," I said. The fuss Wehner was making over his arm got on my nerves. Wehner rose, went over to the young man, bent down, and tried to pull him out of the mud, holding his bandaged hand stiffly at his side. He could not manage it, and the corporal helped him. The lad lay on the slope, shivering violently. I unbuttoned my greatcoat, took it off, and threw it to Wehner, who spread it over him. "It's strange that the road should be so empty," said the corporal. "During a retreat all the roads are usually jammed." "We're off the track," said Corporal Wehner. "Why did we come this way?" asked the corporal, and I thought I heard a hysterical undertone in his voice. "How should I know?" said Wehner, and it sounded like a reproach to me, though no doubt it was not intended. But had I not ignored Wehner's warning about the long, empty road? I had pointed out that we had to get to Bautzen, that most of the roads were blocked, so I decided to make a detour through open country. Wilhelm, the driver, came from Bautzen, and knew the area like the back of his hand; and, we would get there much quicker, though it was a long way round. All that was perfectly true; but if we had stuck to the main roads we would never have found ourselves in our present plight. Had we been shot up by a Russian fighter-bomber we would not have been stranded like this. Someone would have picked us up. Not at once perhaps, because nobody likes taking along wounded, but here . . . Thin white smoke rose from the charred, crackling remnants of the ambulance. The engines of the convoy became audible. Then it arrived. The first vehicle stopped, and the man beside the driver, a corporal, who was no doubt in command of the convoy, leaned out of the window. "Can we help you, sir?" "We've been shot up. Where are you going?" "To Rietschen, or whatever the place is called." The corporal was no longer looking at me, but at the wounded, and there was a startled and slightly horrified look on his face. This was the normal reaction of healthy men at the sight of wounded—sympathy, horror, and a desire to get away as soon as possible. "Is that far?" I asked. "An hour or two." "Couldn't you—"

The corporal regretfully shook his head and indicated the load behind him with his thumb. "Ammunition, sir," he said. "We're in a hell of a hurry." 229 Of course everyone on his way to the front was always in a hell of a hurry but was always ready to stop for a chat if he had the chance, to put it off for a bit. "Someone'U soon come along and pick you up, sir," said the corporal, and he looked at the sergeant, who was still screaming, though not so loudly as before. "Shall I tell someone, sir?" "Please do," I said. The vehicle moved off, and I caught the corporal's eye as he looked away from the wounded. He looked at me sympathetically and regretfully, but at the same time very glad at being able to leave. "Bet that we don't get away?" asked the corporal as the sound of the engines died away and the convoy grew smaller and smaller in the crystal-clear air. "Nonsense," said Wehner. "I've done the same thing myself," said the corporal. "Haven't I left wounded begging for a lift lying by the wayside? But the Russians were on our heels, and all we cared about was to get away. The wounded had their own medical orderlies and ambulances, didn't they? Why should we bother with them?" "But the Russians are not on our heels," said Rotzinsky. "Our troops are holding them up. Don't you have that impression?" He had a quiet, thoughtful face, he now wore his glasses on the tip of his nose, his left thigh was thickly bandaged from the hip right down to the knee, and under the bandage part of his thin, dirty, hairy leg stuck out. I looked at him, and suddenly remembered whom he and his glasses reminded me of; Hildebrandt. The corporal looked briefly at Rotzinsky and muttered something, and Wehner said: "Whatever you do, don't get panicky." I jumped over the ditch, and, taking care not to press my fingers too hard against the coarse material of the uniform, took from my breast pocket a half-full packages of cigarettes, distributed them to those able to smoke, and finally took a light myself from the corporal. It began to rain. "Something's coming," exclaimed the boy under the greatcoat. He had raised himself on his elbows and was looking in the direction from which we had come. "What did I tell you?" said Wehner. "Wait," said the corporal. Rotzinsky rose to his feet, stood waveringly for a moment trying to balance himself on one leg, and then hobbled toward the ditch. I jumped back over the ditch onto the road. The sergeant coughed, Haeckel came round and asked for water. Two trucks covered with green tarpaulins approached rapidly. I waved, but they drove straight past. Soon afterward three trucks full of soldiers and two cross-country vehicles full of officers drove past, and mud from their wheels spattered into my face. "What did I tell you?" said the corporal behind me, almost in triumph. I had to make an effort not to jump back over the ditch and hit him in the face. "What did I tell you?" he said. "Everything always turns out worse than you expect. Always. That's something you ought to have known." "Doctor! Doctor!" Haeckel called out. "Yes?" I turned and saw his gray, sunken face. Then I jumped over the ditch and knelt beside him. "When are we going on?" he whispered. "Soon."

"I'm in bad pain," he said. "Can I have something to drink?" "No, you mustn't drink." "Is it raining?" "Yes." "I want something to drink," he whispered. "If I had something to drink it wouldn't be so bad, doctor, really. I'm not—" I wiped the dying man's wet face with the flat of my hand. "Not now," I said. "Later when we've arrived." "Yes," he said. "The streetcar stops at the corner." I could not stand the sight of his eyes and put my hand over them. He muttered something unintelligible, and then repeated: "If I had something to drink, doctor, I'd feel better." His frame was shaken by a long, convulsive shudder. His body rose and stiffened; his mouth opened, as if under the influence of some strange force; and then it shut again; and he ground his teeth with a hideous, breaking sound. Behind me I heard the sound of a rapidly approaching vehicle, but I did not turn to look and remained kneeling where I was. It was always the same, they always died hard, why could I not get used to it? I shut the dead man's distorted eyes, removed my hand from his face, rose to my feet, and turned away. A truck drove past in spite of Wehner's efforts to stop it. I was just in time to see through the cabin window the pale, motionless faces of the driver and his companion, and then the heavily laden vehicle had passed, churning up a shower of mud in its wake. "You blasted swine!" Wehner shouted after it. "You blasted swine!" "Things must be very bad out there," said the corporal, indicating the direction of the unceasing rumble from the front. "They're all driving as if the devil were at their heels. Is he dead?" "Yes," I said, and went to see if I could do anything for the sergeant, who had now stopped screaming and was catching the raindrops running down his lips with his thick, swollen tongue. I dodged round Rotzinsky, who was squatting at the edge of the ditch with his bandaged leg sticking straight out in front of him, jumped back onto the road again, and took my pistol from my jacket pocket. I loaded it, making sure the ammunition did not get wet. Then I hid the pistol under my jacket. I did not have long to wait. The rain slackened a little and visibility improved, and a car came rapidly toward us, traveling much faster than the trucks. I stood in the middle of the road facing it, and took out my pistol. Strangely enough, I remained perfectly calm the whole time. The car stopped immediately in front of me. I saw the driver shaking his head disapprovingly behind the windshield wiper. I went around to the side and peered through the wet window. The driver lowered it. Sitting in the back seat was a lieutenant colonel. Only a few moments later did I notice the blue patch on his collar and the staff of Aesculapius on his shoulder straps; he was a chief medical officer. I transferred the pistol to my left hand and saluted. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I have some wounded here," I said. "Our ambulance was shot up by a Russian aircraft. That's why I stopped you—" "With a pistol," the lieutenant colonel said quietly. His face was pale and lined, and his eyelids lay heavy over his barely visible eyes. "I'm sorry, sir, but—" "What is your name?"

I told him. "Well?" "My God, sir, can't you see?" I exclaimed, and then I told him that nobody would stop and pick up my wounded, everybody drove by, leaving them lying in the rain. It was essential to get them away as quickly as possible. One of them had died already. I greatly regretted it, but I had had no alternative but to use my pistol. "I can well imagine it," said the lieutenant colonel. I looked into the car, and noted that it would be possible to put at least two of the most serious cases in it. It might even be possible to get three in, and perhaps the colonel might get out to make room for one more. The others could wait a little longer. "You can take two or three, can't you, sir?" I said. He looked at me, bent forward slightly, and for the first time I detected a trace of sympathy on his face, as well as a strange tension and curiosity. "Tell me," he said. "Would you really have fired?" "Yes," I said. "I'm dreadfully sorry, my dear fellow, but unfortunately I've got to disappoint you. I'm not passing any dressing station. Drive on, Monck," he said. "No!" I exclaimed. "Please get out of the way and don't make a fuss," said the lieutenant colonel. His voice was clear and controlled. "No!" I exclaimed again. I put my pistol into my right hand and rested it on the edge of the window. "No?" "Get out of the car, sir." "And if I don't?" "Get out of the car, sir." "Don't do anything stupid," said the driver. "Get out of the car, sir." The colonel looked at me, and the curiosity in his face increased. His eyes moved down to the pistol, and I thought I saw the trace of a mocking smile at the corners of his mouth. I released the safety catch. The click was plainly audible in the silence. "Drive on," the lieutenant colonel said to the driver, who was looking anxiously at the pistol. "Sir, this man's—" the driver began, but the colonel interrupted him. "Drive on, I said." The driver shrugged his shoulders and put the car into gear. I said, "I'll fire," and raised the pistol until it was pointing straight at the colonel's face. The driver hesitated, but the colonel repeated loudly: "Drive on." The car moved off with a jerk. I did not fire. At the vital moment I failed, as I always did at the crucial moment—as I had done with the Russian who came to seek my aid in the basement of the red-brick building, as I invariably did in situations that involved personal danger to myself. As I had failed with Elfie. And, as always, I had a good excuse. What else could I have done? Nothing I could have said or done would have made any difference. Suppose I had shot the colonel? Did I know what

his orders were or why he had refused to take the wounded? I should have taken one life in the hope of saving another. But it would also have been the end of me —and from that I shrank. The rain had stopped. The colonel's car dwindled in the clear, blue distance. A deep and heavy quiet had descended like a great glass bell. Never in my life had I felt so alone, such an outcast. What had happened? I asked myself in .bewilderment. What had happened? I put the pistol into my pocket, turned, and went back to the ditch, jumped over it and knelt beside the sergeant. "I'm sorry," I said, and what I said was as strange to me at that moment as I was strange to myself. Looking at his agonized face, I did not know why I was talking like that. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't fire." But then I saw that I was talking to a dead man, with wideopen, glassy eyes. I rose to my feet and went over to the boy lying under my greatcoat, and said to him: "I couldn't fire." He smiled. His face suddenly looked untroubled by pain or cold. "Don't worry, sir, we'll get away," he said. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Without looking, I knew it was that of the corporal, and the glass bell all round me slowly lifted. But I was still terribly alone. "A cigarette, doctor?" he said. I let him put a cigarette into my mouth and light it. I inhaled deeply, and then threw the thing furiously to the ground. "It always turns out worse than you expect, doctor," said the corporal. He picked up the cigarette, and there was no trace of argumentativeness in his voice, but quiet resignation and a humble, almost cheerful confidence.

We reached Bautzen late that night in a truck that was part of a long convoy going there to fetch ammunition and supplies for the front. The trucks were full of wounded, but there were also a lot of unwounded men clinging to the mudguards and sitting on the radiators. They told me that the front was disintegrating, the Russians had crossed the Neisse on a broad front, and their armored spearheads had thrust deep into German territory. How far had they got? Nobody knew. They might have reached the Reichswald, or even perhaps the Spree. They had poured across the Neisse like an enormous flood—tanks, assault guns, artillery, and infantry—men, men, and still more men, there was no end to them. And what was there on our side to stop this flood? A thin line, a few strong points, a few tanks, a few assault guns. "How can it be stopped?" a wounded corporal said to me. He had experienced the Russian barrage during the early hours of April 16, and the only comparison he was able to make was with that put up by the German artillery at Sevastopol. In Bautzen the situation was chaotic. A main dressing station there refused to take any more wounded, but I was told that there was a field hospital and also a base hospital where I could try. But I doubt if I should have succeeded had I not run into my old friend Dr. Max Ring in one of the dimly lit corridors of the field hospital, which was bursting at the seams with wounded. With his bloodstained rubber apron and a round surgical mask over his shaved head, he was bending over a wounded man and talking to him, and at first I hardly recognized him. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes tired, and his lively, quick movements had grown slow and weary.

Only his voice was the same, and the pleasure with which he greeted me, taking no notice of the curious faces all round. "Good heavens, Karl, am I dreaming?" "No," I said. "How did you get here?" I was silent. It was good to find him here.

In the small university town where we studied—Max was already in his third semester when I started—he was well known because of his endless involvements with the ladies and hated by the worried mothers of eighteen-year-old daughters. One told veritable miracles about him and the nurses in all the hospitals. Of course not everything had to be true; but the big, broadshouldered, noisy, awkward man with his honest dog's look held an enormous attraction for women. "When you see him you want to take him in your arms like a child, comfort him, and tell him that the world isn't as bad as it looks," one of the nurses once said about him, her eyes all dreamy. "But what makes it really exciting is that one feels he isn't helpless, on the contrary . . ." In flight from a young widow bent on marriage he hid out in my room. "She is a charming girl," he assured me, "and of course I also love her—but I can't marry her!" Actually she was fat, had a deep, masculine voice and a mustache; he loved the abundance of her dairy shop as much as he loved her (since food rationing he had changed his hunting ground away from the hospitals) and quite a few were convinced that he had not fled so much from her love and devotion as out of fear of her stormy temperament, which was too much even for him. At that time, especially in those days of his very willing flight, we became good friends. He went on living with me, we got along very well, didn't have the same taste in girls and were very good at waiting patiently in the corner saloon if one of us happened to have a visitor in our room.

Later, when I had made sure that my wounded were being properly attended to and we were sitting in his little attic room, he said to me: "What's the matter with your hands?" "Burned." "Let me see. That's bad, but we'll soon put it right. I've got a new ointment, very effective; but first we must have a drink, or two or three." He fumbled under the bed and produced a big green bottle, uncorked it, and filled a glass for me. "I'll drink out of the bottle." "Where did you promote this stuff?" "A medical orderly makes it down in the cellar. I don't know what of. It smells a bit of gasoline, but what the hell. The great thing is that it's got a kick." "But what are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you were with a medical company somewhere in the north. East Prussia, wasn't it?" "That was a long time ago. Now I'm with a mobile surgical group. We go all over the place, and for the past two months we've been here. We got out of Breslau just in time. Our chief is old Mathis. There's complete chaos here, though up to last week it was just like peacetime—girls and music in the cafe around the corner. Did you see the wounded lying outside?"

I nodded. "And in the yard? Three hundred, five hundred, perhaps eight hundred. We haven't an inch of room; we can't accept any more; we simply have to send them away. And where are they to go, and how can we evacuate those who are here already? Where to? Have you read that?" He pointed to a notice fastened to the wall with a rusty nail. It was Hitler's order of the day at the beginning of the great Russian offensive. "I should like to know what goes on in that man's head," he said, sitting on a stool next to the camp bed. There was a feverish gleam in his eyes. "I know it practically by heart," he went on. "I've read it five times, perhaps ten. A huge force of artillery receives the enemy. The losses of our infantry have been made good. The Bolshevik will undergo the usual fate of Asia and drown in his own blood. What can be going on in that man's head? There he sits in his Chancellery, a lonely, aging man, crippled, everybody curses him, though there are a few who still believe in him, but fewer and fewer. The fate of Asia. This time it's the other way around. He'll be spoken of like Genghis Khan, he reached the Volga and the Caucasus, he conquered the whole of Europe, and now he's a lonely, ghastly man approaching his end. His dream of world dominion is over. I wonder whether Genghis Khan issued orders of the day like that?" "Probably." "What will they say about him in future ages?" "The French worship Napoleon," I said. "For the next fifty years he'll be hated. Perhaps not as long as that. And then?" "I don't know." "He's no Napoleon; he's something quite different. I've talked to an SS doctor here, in this room. He was drunk, and when he's drunk he talks. As a matter of fact, you know him. He was a student with us, he went into the SS. My God, I tell you . . ." "What?" I asked. "Perhaps he'll tell you one day. Peter Moos, do you remember him?" He took a long drink from the bottle. "This is what keeps me going. There are fools who say that the rifle is the soldier's best friend. This is the soldier's best friend," he said, tapping the bottle. "Do you remember what we used to drink in the old days? Wine and' beer—Steinhager and Dornkaat and Apfelschnaps and Calvados and four-star cognac? And now we're reduced to this. Well, it's no use complaining. If I could only sleep." I leaned back. The schnapps had stopped burning my mouth and belly, a glow of warmth spread through my body, the little room grew bigger and the light brighter, everything was a little fuzzy, and my friend's face above his bloodstained apron was no longer so gray and tired and frightened. "Where's your unit?" he asked. "It no longer exists," I said. "I suppose there are a few survivors wandering about somewhere. I'll have to go and find them. But the regiment and the battalion no longer exist." "But when you wrote you said you probably wouldn't have to go to the front again." "I had to. The Gestapo were after me, because—" "Because?" "The professor fixed things for me, and I was sent off on active service again." "But what have you got to do with the Gestapo?"

"Who hasn't got something to do with the Gestapo?" "When did you get the Iron Cross?" "It was sent me by a general whose leg I amputated," I said. I thought about Elfie, and helped myself to a drink. "You can stay here," said Max. "Nobody'U find you here. Everything's cracking up, and it'll soon be over."

The Decision . . . The severity of the fighting can be deduced from the following figures. Casualties from January 1, 1945, until April 15, 1945, 13,687, including 353 officers. During this period No. 1 Medical Company attended to 6,254 wounded and No. 2 Medical Company to 5,720. These losses could be made good only very inadequately. . . . The heavy casualties among medical personnel testify to their valor. Their casualty rate exceeded that of the combatant troops. (Extract from the war diary of the 93rd Grenadier Division)

I Conference at headquarters of 93rd Grenadier Division at Bautzen. "With our resources all we can do is to improvise," said Major General Muller, the divisional commander. "All we can do is to stop holes, and stopping them merely opens others. We've no men left, and those we have aren't any good. Volkssturm and Hitler Youth. Ten men at the present time are not worth one in 1940. And, as for the war as a whole—well, we all know about that. Tell me, Petersen, where have the Russians got to?" The divisional intelligence officer, a short, thickset major, shrugged his shoulders. "If one only knew, sir. Raabe is helpless. The Russians are said to have broken through in the north." "Yes, I know," said General Muller. "It's enough to drive you crazy. And one is supposed to plan and organize and give clear orders. Absurd. A division? What does a division mean nowadays? There are some with nothing left but their commander and staff. Well, gentlemen, we've got to drive the Russians out of Weissburg. Fechter, what's the state of your regiment?" "In reasonable order, sir," said Lieutenant Colonel Fechter. "H'm, the Tough Brigade, eh? Or were once. Well, Fechter, you've got to get cracking. I can give you a few assault guns and a little artillery support, but that's all." The general was massive in his chair, with his chin on his chest, nervously chewing his long, unlit cigar. The other officers were standing. "Our artillery has gone to hell. Nothing left. And for what is left there's no ammunition. That is to say, there's plenty of ammunition, I hear, but it's in the wrong place. Weiss!" "Sir?" A fat, bespectacled captain with a face like that of an income-tax collector, clicked his heels and bent forward slightly. "How are we off for gasoline?" "I've managed to lay my hands on a tanker—promoted it, so to speak, sir," said the captain, with a smirk of self-satisfaction.

"Well, then, continue promoting. When the war's over, I'll come to you and ask you for a job. .Fechter, how are you off for ammunition? Gas you can have, you've just heard." "I could use two or three trucks, sir," said Colonel Fechter. "Weiss?" "You can have them, colonel," said Captain Weiss. "That's all right, then," said the general. "Nobody'll be able to say that we lay down and died without putting up a fight. Tell me, Petersen, where are the Americans?" "They've apparently reached the Elbe, sir. They are approaching Dresden." "Good God, then they'll soon be here. And we're still fiddling about trying to win the war." He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Petersen, carry on." The divisional medical officer, Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Lippschitz, stood at the wall, looking heavy-eyed at the officers' heads. His face was pale, his cheeks sagged, and his lower lip drooped, showing his teeth. He listened as if from a great distance to what the general and his officers were saying; and, when Major Peterson began to speak and the officers crowded round the table to look at a spread-out map, he did not move. What was he doing here? An expression of unspeakable pride and boredom appeared on his face, but underneath it he was suffering deeply. He stood erect and lonely, with thick beads of sweat on his brow, staring straight ahead. He seemed immersed in a strange melancholy, and looked as though he had been transported from another world into the midst of these officers, all of whom he knew very well indeed, though they were so unspeakably strange and remote from him. What was he doing here? They revolted him. In fact everybody revolted him, always and everywhere. Thank God, it would soon be over; he was sick to death of these boring conferences. The general was a fat, lazy idiot, and was done for in any case; Petersen was an idiot with tradition behind him; Fechter was an extremely ambitious military idiot—still extremely ambitious, though he must see how deeply they were all in the mire; Weiss was a pettifogging pen pusher; and the young medical officer he had met on the road yesterday was an overzealous idiot who hadn't even had the courage to shoot. . . . What the devil was he doing among these people? Sooner or later General Muller was bound to have a stroke —and probably sooner rather than later. His face had the right color; and, if his belly were cut open, you'd find nothing but fat—horrible, wobbly, yellow fat. Disgusting! With that complexion. Eats too much. Sir, you should go on a diet. ... A diet? Me? Lippschitz, you're not in your right mind; I won't do anything of the sort. What I say is, eat as much as you can while you can. You just wait till the war's over, then we'll all look as they do in Dachau. I saw them once, the poor devils. You could hear their bones rattle as they went by. You mark my words; I'll look like that one day myself. Lippschitz decided that he must have another shot soon. Talk, talk, nothing but talk. "Vigorous action must be taken at once to restore order." That was Major Podzyl, who spoke poor German, and badly wanted the Knight's Cross. "These Russians are only human after all; they're not supermen." That was the fat general's high-pitched, squeaky voice. "All the necessary steps will be taken." That was the voice of intelligence. "The Fuhrer's orders." That, of course, was Fechter. "I've still got a case of beer, it would be a pity to lose it." That, needless to say, was the fat general again. "What can I do with ten riflemen?" That

was Lieutenant Colonel Grimm. What were they all getting so worked up about? As if it mattered. Nothing mattered—except that he'd have another shot as soon as this was over. He had long passed the stage at which pervitin was any use. The injections were turning him into a wreck; he knew that. But what did that matter, after what had happened to Lucy? The injections made things more bearable. In any case, it wasn't going to last much longer. Why hadn't that overzealous idiot of a captain fired? He had never really believed he was going to, though his face looked as if he might. Why hadn't he fired? There would have been a sharp crack, which he wouldn't have heard. When Fechter came over to him, a trace of life appeared on his impassive face. "I've just lost two of my doctors, Lippschitz. Do you think anything can be done about it?" Fechter asked. "No," said Lippschitz. "Where do you expect me to get replacements?" "So nothing can be done, then?" "I'm afraid not. But just a minute. I met an incredibly zealous young man today, a captain. He might be just the man you need." "Who's he?" "I should quite like to have him myself," said Lippschitz, with a smile round the corners of his mouth. "His name's Karl Braun." "What name did you say?" said Fechter, leaning forward eagerly. "Karl Braun, a captain?" "Yes, if I remember correctly. I met him on the road on the way here. He must be somewhere in Bautzen. Do you know him?" "Yes, slightly." "But there's an order—" "I'll have a word with the general," Fechter said slowly. "Braun served with me at one time. You're right. He's just the man I need. I'll see that you get the necessary authority."

II A Russian bomber was circling overhead, but Colonel Lippschitz ignored it. He had given himself a shot in the arm in the divisional headquarters men's room, and the world now seemed a better place. Everything about him was once more clear and sharply defined, and he felt a new man. "Home," he said to the driver when he got into his car. The driver was a massive man with a face that might have been carved out of stone. He nodded. "Carry on, carry on!" said Colonel Lippschitz. "You have full authority, did you hear? Full authority." The car moved off slowly through the dark and empty streets. "Tell me," Colonel Lippschitz went on. "You remember that zealous young idiot on the road yesterday? Do you think he got away?" "Who, sir?"

"That young medical officer on the road. Why didn't he fire? If he got away, he must be here somewhere. Tomorrow I want you to find him and bring him to me. What was his flame? Braun, wasn't it?" "Yes, sir." "That's all right, then. Tomorrow morning you must find him and bring him to me. I want to meet the man who wanted to shoot me." Colonel Lippschitz was not sure whether he had actually spoken those words or had just thought them. A wonderful sense of peace and tiredness was slowly invading his frame; the moving car, the streets, the dark-red sky were very plain and distinct. And then he saw once more in his mind's eye the young medical officer's gray, dirty, bloodstained face, which was threatening and irresolute at the same time. There was also something else about it. But what? Why hadn't he fired? The question teased him like a troublesome fly. But at the moment his curiosity in the matter was exceedingly mild and relaxed, because very soon he would be finding out. He was feeling fine, and moments like this made everything worthwhile. How easy everything was! It wouldn't last, of course, but what did that matter? He could have another shot whenever he liked and he could take as much as he liked. Lucy had not been so lucky. He had taken the stuff away from her and sent her to an institution, but she had started again, and again he had refused to give it to her; he had not understood, and she had gone away. Now he understood. She had started getting the stuff herself; and, when her money ran out, she had gone on the streets to earn money to get more. Now I understand, he whispered to himself. Now I understand. Memories rose in his mind and lingered for a moment before giving way to others; and they were not painful; but familiar and consoling. It was only when he was in this state that memory was tolerable. Dreams and realities, faces, forms, shadows. The driver's familiar round head. I've known him for fifteen years, he said to himself; he was just the same when Lucy was still alive and he drove me through Berlin. The general's fat, bluish face. Fechter's angular, resolute face. The young medical officer's face when he pointed his pistol at me. The desperation in Lucy's eyes and her agonized appeals . . . The car stopped, and the driver turned his head. "Here we are, sir." Get up, get out, go in, go to sleep, get up again tomorrow, Colonel Lippschitz said to himself. But he remained where he was until the driver got out, opened the door, helped him out, and half carried him up the steps to his quarters.

The Hospital 18A. The following form of words will be used in informing casualties' next of kin (next of kin of casualties of foreign nationalities can be informed in German). On admission to the hospital: I inform you herewith that your husband (son, brother, etc.) (rank and name to be stated in full) has been received into (name of hospital) suffering from (description of wound or illness). The degree of seriousness of the wound or illness and the prospects of recovery will be stated. In case of death the following form of words will be used: I have the sad duty to inform you that your husband (son, brother) who was received into (name of hospital) suffering from on (date to be given if next of kin has not previously been informed of admission) died on the (date.) I express my deepest sympathy with you in your great loss. Information on all matters connected with the welfare of servicemen's and ex-servicemen's next of kin will gladly be given at the appropriate ex-servicemen's welfare office. Information about the forwarding of money, personal property, etc., will follow; and the place of burial will be stated. Official forms will not be used in informing next of kin. (Extract from Army Medical Service Regulations)

The Doctor So I was back where I started, with the men who had introduced me to war in the first place. In the meantime I had been promoted, and had spent a long time in hospital, and also I had met Elfie. And I was sent back to the front, and had dealt with innumerable wounded and had seen innumerable men die. And I had learned that, though my primary task was medical, that is to say, the treatment of the wounded in accordance with scientific principles—no easy job under the difficult conditions of war—I had an even more important task, helping men to die decently. When medicine could do no more, I had to exercise a function that was more like that of a priest. A lot of problems that had once troubled me now seemed trivial and unimportant, and the result of my pride and immaturity. I smiled at the Utopian ideas that had been planted in my head by Hildebrandt while I operated on Sergeant Fink in the trench. Many of the questions that once upon a time I had put to Captain Surkamp, had turned out to be absurd, not even worth answering. And to some of them I had found the answer. I no longer wondered where my place was. Not that I found it for myself. I was driven to it, sometimes with blows and kicks. The answer was given to me by the wounded and the dying, as well as by my own sufferings. But to the most important question of all, perhaps the only one that really mattered, I had found no answer. The more experience I had of war the more bewildering it became; and, though this great question was with me all the time, though the war governed every detail of my life just as it did everybody else's, I did not even know how to frame it properly. Now I understood why Joachim and all the others merely shrugged their shoulders and said: "At the front we have no time to ask questions; we just fight." Wasn't that exactly my position?

And yet I suspected that in the long run I should not be able to evade the question quite so easily. Sometime and somehow I will be brought face to face with it, and then I will have to give the answer. When I saw Sergeant Fink again, I felt in my bones that this would not be long delayed. That day has remained in my mind with singular clarity. When I awoke in Max's room it took me quite a time to realize where I was. The building was full of life; noises, voices, a long, barely audible scream sounded as if it came from the bowels of the earth; and behind it all was the continuous rumble from the front. I opened my eyes and shut them again, and went on lying there, and after a time I sank into that pleasant state halfway between wakefulness and sleep. The sounds of the new day were very remote, and I wondered who had bandaged my hands and pulled off my boots, and then all I heard was the sound of my own breathing and the beating of my heart —until suddenly I heard the sound of hobnailed boots. They came straight toward me. I raised myself on my elbows and looked toward the door. "Good morning," said Max. "Did you sleep well?" He 246 looked as if he had not been to bed; there were deep circles under his eyes, and his face was hollow and lined. "I slept fine," I said. "And how are your hands?" "I can hardly feel them any longer. Who bandaged them?" "I did. I'll come and see you again later. There's a corporal here who wants to see you." He moved aside from the doorway, and I now saw for the first time that a big, heavy man was standing behind him. Max nodded to me and left, and the corporal came toward me. I knew his face from somewhere. I had seen it quite recently, but I could not remember where. "Good morning, sir," he said; and now I remembered the incident on the road, the driver shaking his head behind the windshield wiper, the medical officer sitting in the back of the car, and me pointing my pistol at him. "What is the matter with your hands?" he said. "They're burned. What do you want?" "Are they badly burned?" "Oh, no." "Did it happen yesterday?" "Yes. But why do you ask?" The scene on the road seemed unreal and imaginary, and I had the feeling that this was an evasion, and that we ought to be talking about something else. "What is it you've come to see me about?" I asked in an unsuccessful effort to break down the unreality of the situation. The corporal looked at me in silence. "Come on, man, out with it," I said. "I expect it's connected with what happened yesterday. Isn't that it?" He nodded, and said: "In your case, sir, I'd see I was given marching orders." "Is he after my head?" "Isn't that surgeon who brought me in here a friend of yours, sir? He or somebody else will certainly be able to see that you're given marching orders, with those hands of yours."

"Why? What's all this about?" "He's the chief medical officer," the corporal said slowly. "I know him very well. I've known him for fifteen years. In the old days . . ." He tightened his lips as if he had said too much. Then he turned and walked out without saluting, and the sound of his footsteps faded into the other noises of the big building. "What the devil did that corporal want?" Max asked me later. I had gone to look for him to say good-by and found him outside the operating theater. I had no desire to cross swords with the chief medical officer. I had had at the back of my mind the idea of having things out with him in some way, but this now seemed absurd. With or without marching orders, I had decided to go and find my unit, or at any rate what was left of it after the Russian breakthrough. But Max told me that conditions in the hospital were appalling and asked me to stay for a few hours at least, if not for a day, because his anesthetist had fallen sick, apparently dysentery, and I could take his place in spite of my bandaged hands. I agreed. And so there we were, outside the room that had been rigged up as a makeshift operating theater. While Max washed his hands he said: "He came in and asked for you in a perfectly regular manner. Shouldn't I have let him know you were here? Where do you know him from?" "He's a chief medical officer's driver." "That's right. Lippschitz's, if I'm not mistaken. The divisional medical officer. A very odd man." "Why?" "He's a drug addict, among other things." "Morphine?" "Yes, there are lots who take it. Personally I stick to schnapps. But what did his driver want? What have you got to do with Lippschitz?" I told him. When I had finished, he whistled through his teeth. "No doubt he was under the influence of the stuff. And if not—God knows. He must be in a pretty bad way; perhaps -he drove on because he couldn't wait any longer for it— and he a divisional medical officer. What are you going to do?" "Report the matter." "You ought to, of course; but in the present state of things it would be pointless. It's not going to last much longer. What I was going to suggest was that, if you can't find your unit, which wouldn't be in the least surprising in this chaos, you might join up with us. I've mentioned you to the chief already. We're moving off tomorrow, perhaps tonight. Do you hear?" He made a gesture with his head toward the window. "They'll soon be here. Christ, how tired I am!" The operating theater was a big, bright classroom that had been fitted up with two mobile operating tables. The wooden flooring had been removed, the uneven concrete was damp, and in one corner there was a big puddle. At the first table Professor Mathis was at work. I knew his name from various publications. By rank he was a major, and he had been one of the first advocates of the so-called advanced surgical groups, which were eventually formed in the course of the war. The object was to deal with the wounded as soon as possible, that is, as far forward as possible, and they generally worked at main dressing stations.

The professor glanced up at us when we walked in. All that was visible of his face was the bridge of his nose and two cold, expressionless eyes peering at us through gold-rimmed spectacles over his mask. Max introduced me, and the professor nodded and went on with his operation. Captain Vogel was operating at the other table. He made a long quick cut around the wound with his scalpel. "How's Hannes?" he asked. "So-so," Max replied. "Has he really got dysentery?" "Apparently. It's the old story. At first you take no notice, because you have that perpetual diarrhea anyway; and then suddenly it gets worse, and you're ill." "This must be a large lump of metal," said Captain Vogel. "A mortar shell, I expect," said Max. "I want silk, you idiot, not catgut," the professor's voice bellowed. I followed the quick, skillful movements of their hands. They worked beautifully together, like a well-trained team. How familiar all this was to me! It was not long since t, myself had been doing what Max was doing now, helping my professor and carefully following the movements of his skillful hands.

"Has that delivery of silk thread arrived yet?" Vogel asked. "I've no idea. I don't think so," said Max. "To think that we can't be sure even of things like that!" "Soon we shan't get them at all." When he heard the bombs falling, Captain Vogel turned his head to one side and waited for the explosions. Then he went on quietly with his work. "Next case! Quick!" the professor said at the next table. Orderlies hurried about; the man who had been operated on was taken away and another was brought in. The doctors changed their gloves, and the Russian aircraft seemed to be approaching again. "Christ, what a weight!" one of the orderlies exclaimed. Heavy footsteps went by in the corridor; and some tanks passed in the street outside, making the walls and floor vibrate; and Captain Vogel said angrily: "You don't get a moment's peace. Things are getting worse and worse." The operation on which we were engaged had lasted nearly an hour, and we had made no real progress. The professor's voice said: "What are things like outside?" "More and more keep coming in, sir." "It's no good, it's no good," Captain Vogel muttered. "I don't think he'll come through, I don't know. . . . How many hours are we going to have to do today?" He stretched his painful back, sighed, and went on: "Ten, twelve, twenty. And what will happen after we've gone?" Then he bent over the wound again. We had begun operating at about half-past seven. Some time after nine Vogel found a big fragment in the muscular tissue round the spine. Shortly before ten he started sewing the patient up again. At ten o'clock we had finished. A little after eleven the patient died.

Some time later we stopped for a cigarette. We went into the anteroom, leaving the door of the operating theater ajar. An orderly brought us coffee. "Good God, man, I want silk, not catgut!" the professor bellowed. "He can work fifty hours on end," Max said quietly over his cup of coffee. "When we're all ready to drop he's just getting under way." The noise of aircraft approached again, and the antiaircraft guns opened up. "Ah! What did I tell you? Look! There it is!" the professor exclaimed in his loud, now triumphant voice. Vogel went outside. An explosion shook the building. The professor bent protectively over his patient and then glanced up briefly at a place in the ceiling where a bit of plaster had broken off and fallen into the middle of the room. "Take it away," he bellowed, and returned to his patient. "And he's over sixty, too," said Max, blowing into his coffee. Vogel came back. While washing his hands he said: "And so it goes, gentlemen. An officer has just told me that the Americans are already in Dresden. They're certainly moving, Breslau is still holding out. Extraordinary, isn't it? Outside things are very bad, very bad indeed. There's no place left to lay the wounded. There are some women and children and old men in the road outside. They were attacked by a fighter-bomber. What's the time?" "A quarter past twelve," said Max. "It's appalling," said Vogel. "How can we hope to deal with them all? And what a lovely day it is. The sun's shining, the birds are singing—spring has come." He spoke the last words more slowly and quietly, and looked at the door as he did so. I followed his glance. Sergeant Fink stood in the doorway, big and massive, with drooping lower lip and expressionless, claylike face. He stood there motionless, looking at me; and he showed no sign of recognition.

The Field of Death My darling, I know that you will never get this letter, or that, if you do, it will be only after many delays. This may be my last letter. All the same it is not a farewell letter, and you are not to take it as such. I want only to talk to you as one sometimes talks to oneself; for you have become a part of me through the short time we spent together, the single night that was given us. If only I were able to tell you a small fraction of the things that I should like to tell you, if only I could tell you all the things that we left unsaid. You were right, my darling: nobody and nothing can take away from us what happened between us. But memory alone becomes sad and bitter, and the time we have not spent together is irretrievably lost. I cannot imagine a future without you; for me such a future is inconceivable. I know that those sound like big words, that they have been said a thousand times before, but 1 have not used them lightly, and behind them there is much more than can be expressed by three words "I love you." How can I put on paper what 1 could not express in words? I know that if you were with me you would know what I mean. But, as this cannot be, let me use those words all the same. I love you. We are living through terrible times, which have left their mark on all of us. And what more may lie ahead? But if one thing is clear to me, it is that we can get the better of them only with love. Before I met you 1 did not know what that meant—and I don't mean only love. . . . (Unfinished letter from Lieutenant Karl Braun to Elfriede von Carsten)

The Doctor The little market town below us was full of Russians. I looked at them through the adjutant's field glasses. The town square was full of trucks, horses, guns, and tanks. - Three soldiers came out of a house, their arms full of preserved fruits. An old woman stood in the doorway shaking her fists at them. A soldier rode a zigzag course on a bicycle, ran into some others, fell, picked himself up, and mounted the bicycle again. Another, apparently an officer, gestured excitedly to an antitank-gun crew who had abandoned their gun at the entrance to the village. Four soldiers came and stood at attention in front of him, and no doubt he gave them a tremendous dressing down. The tank crews were lying on top of their tanks, which were covered with an extraordinary assortment of objects; some of the men were lying on straw sacks and mattresses spread out on the steel plates. A civilian drove another in front of him, continually striking him in the back. A one-armed man stood motionless in front of a house, and stared up at the windows. Two soldiers were chasing a young woman in a garden between the houses. Not far away a group gathered round a slaughtered pig. Four little white dots—probably rabbits—were moving about in a field outside the village. A party of soldiers was after them. One of them fired his submachine gun, the shots sounded thin and harmless in the distance, and one small white dot remained motionless. The man went over and triumphantly picked it up. Outside the biggest building in the square there was a long row of civilians, men only; every now and then a new one was brought along to join them. In one of the side streets thirty, or perhaps fifty, refugee wagons were drawn

up, and soldiers were threading their way between them. Three of them spoke to a woman carrying a baby in her arms. Children were standing around the tanks. At the edge of the village horses belonging to a Cossack unit were tethered. The soldier with the bicycle threw it to the ground and vanished into a house. The three soldiers who were chasing the young woman caught her and dragged her behind some bushes. A column of infantry formed up on the main road, an officer spoke to them, and they dispersed. Most of the soldiers sat down, but some disappeared into the neighboring houses. The submachine guns of the rabbit hunters rattled, and more and more rabbits dropped. "Can I have the glasses back, please?" said the adjutant, a young lieutenant with a round, excited face. I returned them, and he pressed them against his horn-rimmed glasses. "The strength of a whole division," he whispered, as if he feared that the Russians in the village might overhear him. "It may be a whole division. At least eight thousand men. Perhaps ten thousand." I looked at the village again. Now it was very far away, and I could no longer make out individuals or groups. "It'll be a . . ." the lieutenant began. He glanced at his watch, and then looked through his field glasses again. Lieutenant Colonel Fechter, who was lying behind the top of the hill, spoke to a runner, who started off bent double and vanished into the wood. The colonel looked at his watch, said something; and Fink, who was lying beside him, handed him a signal pistol. The colonel raised it, again looked at his watch, waited a few moments, and fired. The green signal light climbed into the pale-blue, late-afternoon sky, slowed down, described a small arc, started falling to earth again, and went out. And, as if its dying had resurrected the war that had seemed dead, machine guns, assault guns, light antiaircraft guns, opened up all around us. They fired without pause or intermission, with a deafening noise. Innumerable tracer bullets tore into the village, burst between the houses, against the walls, amidst the chaos in the streets, amidst the excited shouting of male voices, which was audible in spite of the bombardment and turned rapidly to a yell of rage, desperation, and terror. Shells exploded in the streets, in the houses, in the square, at the edge of the village, in the field where the men had been hunting rabbits. The hunters scurried back toward the houses and ran straight into a big explosion, and two of them fell and lay still—two little brown points, not much bigger than the white rabbits. At the other end of the village the horses dashed wildly toward the wood, but they did not escape the hail of fire, and more and more of them dropped. Now also people ran in the same direction, got caught in the deadly hail, ran back into the village, and became fewer and fewer. Shells whistled overhead, and gunners concentrated on the street where the wagons were standing. Three, four, five, no, seven tanks appeared at the edge of the village, but our antitank guns were ready, and flames started shooting from the tanks. The first fires broke out among the houses. A vehicle from a side street tore off across the field, right through the hail of tracer bullets and the leaping fountains of earth, behind it a churning mass of men. Horses reared and fell, men yelled, and more and more lay still on the ground. "They've no way out except across the field," said the lieutenant. "We're all around it." The colonel fired a green-and-white signal light, and a moment later men in extended order started advancing on the village from three sides, firing as they went, leaving open only the dark-

brown field across which more and more Russians tried to escape. They lay there: innumerable, light-brown heaps on the dark-brown field. The advancing Germans met with only sporadic fire from the houses and gardens, and soon that died away; but the tracer bullets still plunged into the village, which was now on fire from end to end. Then we entered it.

Lieutenant Colonel Fechter's reinforced regiment had, with only slight losses, wiped out practically a whole Russian division. The dead were too numerous to count, and the streets were filled with the yells and groans of the wounded. The German refugee convoy had been sacrificed to the concentration of German fire, and only a few men and horses survived. I dashed through the streets, climbed over the ruins, avoiding the heat pouring from the burning houses, tried to help, drove the medical orderlies unmercifully, and heard myself praying—for the first time since my childhood. We did not stay long in the village. That same evening we moved out, leaving the dead, the dying, and the wounded behind. The regiment had captured a great deal of booty, and was mentioned next day in the Wehrmacht official communique.

Night: We formed the rearguard of troops retreating northwest toward the Elbe. One afternoon we had to abandon our last trucks because of lack of fuel. The big American troop transports we had captured in the village were practically new. I saw tears in the eyes of one driver when he put the explosive charge under the hood. Sometimes we were alone and at other times we were surrounded by huge masses of marching men, and I had the impression that our regiment was the only unit that was still more or less intact. Master Sergeant Fink (as he had now become) dogged me like a shadow, but I did not care. An age seemed to have passed since the day when I drove with him through the streets of Bautzen to regimental headquarters. After the attack on the village and the days of retreat that lay behind us my own cares and troubles seemed very small and insignificant. The fact that Fink's presence filled me with a sense of ever-increasing menace left me cold. All this had become much less important than it had been on the day when he had suddenly appeared at the hospital and silently looked at me. I read only fleetingly the order that he handed me. I knew exactly what was in it. "Well, then, let's be off," I said. I said good-by to Max and Captain Vogel, and then we drove away to see Colonel Lippschitz. On the way I said to Fink: "I've got no equipment." "Everything's there," he replied. Colonel Lippschitz was nearly as laconic. All he said to me was: "So there you are, my zealous young friend of yesterday." Then he became very distant and businesslike and made no further reference to our encounter on the road. He told me that I had been transferred, effective immediately to Colonel Fechter's assault battalion; and it did not enter my head to inquire how such

a transfer was possible. There was no point in arguing. Then he was suddenly in a very great hurry, and dismissed me. I drove out of the town with Fink, and during the trip I asked him whether he had got his Knight's Cross for capturing the bridge. He glanced at me and nodded, and the way he looked at me wiped out everything that had happened since his eyes had asked me: What did you do to me while I was unconscious?

"You are assuming the duties of regimental medical officer," said Colonel Fechter. "Your predecessor was killed. But Colonel Lippschitz will have told you that." "No, sir," I said. "Then you know now. No doubt you are familiar with the duties of a regimental medical officer." "No, sir." "How do you account for that?" He had changed very little. His features had grown sharper, and there were deeper lines around his eyes and his firmly closed mouth. The sun shone into the room through the big window, his Knight's Cross gleamed, and so did the silver Oak Leaves above it. It was almost a repetition of our first meeting. "How do you account for that?" he repeated. "I've hardly met any of my regimental medical officers, sir. How should I know what their duties are?" "Then try to work it out; I expect it will come back to you. Normally you don't make such an unintelligent impression. And you can always look up your official regulations." "Unfortunately, not, sir; they were burned." It could not have been just defiance that made me talk like this. The threat in his cold eyes left me unaffected. Was that the difference between now and earlier? I knew why he had sent for me, that he would set Fink at my heels, and that it was highly unlikely that I should get off scot free. But I was unable to take him seriously; neither him, nor Fink, nor the hatred that radiated from both of them. For me they were no longer the representatives of the anonymous power that used to stand behind them—though I knew that in its dying spasms that power was more terrible, more incalculable, and more pitiless than ever. They were my personal enemies. One was a mutilated master sergeant (though why he was my enemy I did not know, and probably he did not know himself); and the other—an unsuccessful suitor who wanted revenge. A successful suitor can hardly regard his unsuccessful rival other than with a feeling of superiority, of slightly contemptuous pity, independently of whether or not this is justified by other circumstances. Certainly he was my commanding officer. He could order me to do this and to do that, he could send me wherever he liked, he had it in his power to give me orders that must inevitably result in my death. But by doing so deliberately he would be abusing his authority, putting himself in the wrong in relation to the power to which he had sworn loyalty. He was aware of that, and he probably also realized that I was aware of it. His face grew red with anger. "You have grown very self-assured since we last met, Braun," he said slowly. "But you can rest assured that we have the longer arm."

"That I do not doubt, sir," I said. Strangely enough, when I left him I felt sorry for him. I had seen this strong, resolute, powerful man, who held the life and death of his men in his hands, reduced to impotence. Though I thought about all this a great deal during the first days after our meeting, as time passed it came to occupy a smaller and smaller place in my mind. In the growing chaos we and our personal squabbles and feelings and preoccupations dwindled to the vanishing point. We were helpless puppets, tossed about like leaves in the wind. We were utterly small and insignificant; and I think that Fechter came to feel that, too. I watched his hopeless struggle to maintain order and discipline in the regiment—and began to admire him. He must have known that it was senseless, but he did not give in. In the midst of chaos he remained outwardly unchanged. But sometimes, when he thought he was unobserved, I caught him with his shoulders sagging; and he drew his hand across his eyes and face as if trying to shake off the nightmare that surrounded him, the nightmare to which no end was in sight, the nightmare that grew more hideous and oppressive as time went on. And occasionally—only occasionally and for brief moments—I thought I saw on his face the mark of death. If fear was among my feelings toward him during the first few days of our encounter; it ended by disappearing. It was not the colonel but Fink whom I had cause to fear. In the village I had seen Fink pointlessly shoot down two Russians who emerged from a house with raised hands after putting up a brief resistance; by then the fighting was as good as over. Later I caught his eyes. They were not cold and dispassionate as they used to be; instead there was a mad, murderous gleam in them, a look of rage and hatred; and his face was distorted almost beyond recognition. He would have shot down without scruple anyone who opposed him and his desire to kill. But who was there to oppose him? What a splendid opportunity the Russians in the village offered for revenging the long road back from Stalingrad, for the painful, humiliating descent from the summit of victory to the abyss of defeat. This was not war, but slaughter—war showing its true fact. The thin crust of convention and civilization had crumbled, collapsed. By now there was scarcely a single German unit left that wanted to go on fighting; but, when an opportunity for retaliation presented itself, these troops, whose chief hope of salvation lay in flight, were terrible in their rage^and thirst for revenge—and not less terrible was the vengeance of the victors for all the years of their defeat. I do not think that Fink recognized the symptoms of collapse. He realized that the war was lost; I overheard a conversation between him and a corporal. But it had no influence on his behavior. What I had felt when I saw him before the attack in July, 1943, I now knew to be true; he was destruction. In the final flare-up of the war his destructive mania increased—and I was involved in it. And still I did not fear him. He, too, was only a leaf tossed about in the storm. I knew that sooner or later a clash between us would come, though how it would come it was impossible to foresee. And I also knew that when it came the difference in rank between us, he as an N.C.O. and I as an officer, would be immaterial; for at that time the barriers were breaking down, not only between us but everywhere, wherever you looked. An army organized on strictly impersonal, hierarchial principles was disintegrating into small bands and parties of men with their own laws, still held together by custom and tradition, and training. The slightest external circum-

stance often was enough to shatter the last bonds between them—leaving nothing but men indiscriminately fleeing for their lives. When we stopped one night in a little town (I cannot remember its name) that our troops had abandoned, I met Colonel Lippschitz' driver. Our conversation was so extraordinary that it seemed more like the fantasy of a patient in high fever. The divisional staff had been quartered in the town, and had left with the last troops before we arrived. The town was dark and deserted, except the rattling of the wheels of the wagons of civilian refugees and the clip-clop of their horses' hoofs. I had nearly run out of medical supplies, and went to what had been the main dressing station with two medical orderlies and a pushcart. In those days huge quantities of nonessential supplies were being constantly abandoned; it was hard enough to get the wounded away, let alone supplies. What we found was not much, but it was something to go on with. I sent the orderlies back with it, while I stayed in the big, abandoned building, which had once been a school, to see what else I could pick up. The light from my flashlight glided up and down the dirty walls. The floor was covered with straw, discarded, bloodstained bandages, and rubbish of all sorts. School benches, piled up to the ceiling. Bits of old uniforms, three rifles in a corner, a few hand grenades, some ammunition. When I opened the door to one room and shone my flashlight inside I started back in horror; a long row of motionless forms lay on the floor, barefooted, some in brown uniforms, and some naked. There was a smell of corpses. Russian prisoners who had died here, and had been left for their comrades to bury. Softly, as if to avoid disturbing their last rest, I closed the door. Then I found the operating theater, and in a sterilizer there were a number of surgical instruments; these would be useful. On my way out I hastened my steps. The building, with its innumerable corridors, rooms, and staircases, seemed to be full of invisible life, ghostly footsteps, whispers. I walked behind the feeble light of my flashlight like a boy nervously walking through a wood at night. As in my boyhood, I told myself that it was silly to be afraid; and, as in my boyhood, I could not wait to get into the open. But even when I was in the street the feeling that I was accompanied by innumerable inaudible footsteps did not leave me, and it was with relief that I heard from two or three blocks away the sound of rattling cart wheels and the clatter of boots. These sounds came from the living and not from the ghosts of the dead. But before I saw the men who were making the sounds, I stopped in my tracks. A dark, motionless form was standing in the doorway, and it retired deeper into the shadow as if it did not want to be seen. "Who's there?" I called out with beating heart, and slowly approached. A deep male voice, which I recognized, though I could not immediately place it, said: "Good evening, sir." "Who's there?" I said again, and the man stepped out into the open. It was Colonel Lippschitz' driver. We stood in the deep shadow of the doorway, and the man said: "Nobody'll miss us if we stay behind, will they? Or perhaps they may tomorrow, but then it will be too late." "You're mad," I said. "Do you think so?" The tone seemed sly and slightly menacing.

"You can't do that!" I said. "Come with me. Now go and wake him." The driver said nothing. I looked into the bright oval of his face and could not believe that he meant what he said. Then he began to speak. He spoke brokenly, hesitantly, as if afraid someone might overhear. He brought his face closer to mine until I could feel his breath, and then I felt his hand on my chest, and he held me tight, the words came pouring out, and he spoke faster and faster. "Who's going to stop me?" he said. "It's no good your calling anybody, because there's nobody here. I've made up my mind, and I'll tell you why. He refused to pick up the wounded when you met him on the road. A swine, isn't he? A damned dirty swine. I'll tell you why he refused. It was because you had a pistol, because you said you were going to shoot. He believed you were going to shoot, and then it would be over. You didn't realize that, did you? It's true, though nobody knows it but me. And I'll tell you why. "I've been his driver for fifteen years. He was a good doctor, a very good doctor indeed. I'd heard people say that; but I couldn't judge for myself until he cured my boy, after everybody else had given him up. He sat by his bedside day and night, and he cured him, and it never even occurred to him to think that the boy was no more than a criminal's son. He took me on as his driver though he knew I had just come out of that prison. Four years in Spandau. Do you know what that means? And then there was all that with my boy, and a lot of other things too. I can't tell you about them now, they were trivial and unimportant, but not to me and to the others he helped. And then he got married. She was a little Italian woman; and he adored her. But then she fell in; she had something wrong with her face; and she was in terrible pain, and he kept giving her morphine; and when she got better she couldn't do without it, though he kept telling her she must give it up. He called her Lucy, though her name was Lucia, and she was small and graceful and very beautiful, and she spoke German with a fascinating lilt and pronounced her r's funnily. He kept on telling her she must give it up, or it would be her ruin, but she couldn't give it up, and he sent her to an institution; but it didn't do her any good, because she went back to the stuff as soon as she came out. When he tried locking her up in the flat, she just screamed and sobbed. Once or twice I got her the stuff myself; it was very wrong of me, I know, but I couldn't bear to see her suffer. He tried staying with her, he locked himself in with her and tried to help her that way, but it wasn't any use, and in the end she couldn't stand it any longer and ran away. He found her and sent her back to the institution; and when she came out she ran away again. He found her and locked her up for a week or two, but she managed to escape; and then she went on the streets, because she couldn't get money to buy the stuff any other way. He refused to give her money, you see, because he knew that if he did somehow or other she'd get the stuff. He fetched her back again and again, but it was useless, and she ended by giving herself too big a dose. Have you ever seen a man suffer? No, you haven't, not the way I have. Then he started taking it himself. Why? How should I know? That was after the beginning of the war, and now he's going the same way. He can't give it up; and he doesn't even want to any longer; and perhaps he's too frightened to take an overdose or end things with his pistol; or perhaps he doesn't want to, who knows? And what's to blame for all this? Nothing but that damned stuff. I know it's a good thing, I know it stops pain and makes you dream. I've never used it myself, but I've seen it given to men who were screaming in agony, and soon they'd stop and start smiling like children asleep because of their happy dreams. And my son's told me about it, he's a sergeant and was wounded,

and the fact that he's still alive is due to him. But he'll go on taking it until he's done for, and that won't be long now, unless . .." "Unless what?" I said. "If he becomes a prisoner he won't get the stuff any more, don't you see? How could he get it in a prisoner-of-war camp? And if he doesn't get it for two or three years..." "And what about you?" I asked. "It doesn't matter about me," he said. "I'm going to wait for them here, they'll be here tomorrow, and then I'll say: Please, we surrender, we're in the medical service, Red Cross, and so on; this is a sick man. He told me to wake him when it was time to leave; but, when he wakes up, we shall be going in a different direction than he thinks, and there he won't be able to get the stuff any longer. You ought to see his arms! No, where he's going now he won't get the stuff any more, and he'll get healthy again, and I'll look after him. You're a doctor. Tell me, am I right or not?" He obviously still had doubts about the Tightness of what he was going to do but was determined to do it, and he desperately wanted to know what I thought. "You may be right," I said. "If he doesn't get the stuff for a long time—" "He may free himself of the habit." "I knew it!" In his voice there was a note of satisfaction, almost happiness. I left. Next morning, when our regiment caught up with the main body of the division, as well as with many other units, and we rested in a wood, I began a letter to Elfie. We were told that we would have to break through to the west between two Russian-occupied villages. This was going to be extremely difficult, because we would have to cross an open field eight hundred yards in length, the whole of which was under Russian observation. There was no alternative. I sat down, took paper and pencil from my pocket, and began to write. And while writing I kept thinking about the driver and Colonel Lippschitz and that strange conversation in the night, which in my mind had already assumed the unreality of a dream.

The driver When the doctor left, I felt sure he would not give me away. I could tell from the way he wished me luck. He's all right. That's what I felt when he held up the car with his pistol. One of the medical orderlies in his regiment told me he was all right. He told me he must have been in terrible pain whenever he did anything with his burned hands, but he shrank from nothing; he had helped carry a stretcher for a whole hour because there was nobody else to do it; and his face had grown quite wet, and not just from the exertion. Toward morning I heard the sound of Russian tanks coming down the main street. I couldn't see them; I just heard them. There must have been quite a lot of them, there was such a continuous rattle and roar, and the infantry would be along soon, and that would be that. So I went along to his room to wake him, but he was awake already. He looked at me and said: "What's the meaning of this?" "What do you mean?" I said, though I knew perfectly well what he meant.

"That noise." "Tanks," I said. "Russian?" "Yes." He looked at me for quite a time, and then said: "Why didn't you wake me?" I had spent half the night thinking about what to say when he asked me this, and I said: "Because I'm not playing any longer. I'm not going on watching you going to the dogs because of that stuff, and in a prisoner-of-war camp you won't be able to get it." I expected him to fly into a terrible rage, and I wasn't going to take any notice. But he only looked at me, and then he gave a little laugh. Eventually he said: "But what about you?" "I'm coming with you," I said. "It's time to get up, sir. They'll soon be here." "Very well, then," he said, in the voice he used in the old days, when Lucia was alive; and I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my heart. He got out of bed, and said: "I'd better shave, hadn't I? We don't want to look like bandits when—" He shaved and dressed, and I helped him; and when we were ready we heard footsteps going past outside. There were more and more of them, and he said: "Come on, let's go." We went out into the street, and stopped on the sidewalk, he in full uniform and steel helmet and I with the red cross on my arm. Then some Russians came running along from where the main dressing station had been. They saw us, stopped, and then came nearer, pointing their submachine guns at us, and I said to myself: Come along, now, come along! "They're very cautious," the chief said to me and smiled, and I thought things were going very nicely. Then they were all around us, and they were furious because of something; they shouted at us and threatened us with their weapons, and one took hold of me and shook me and shouted but I could not understand what he said. Then another one came up, apparently an N.C.O., and the others talked to him and he nodded, and then he said something to us in Russian that I understood. "Come along with us," he said. We went in the direction of the dressing station. I thought they were taking us to a prisoners' collecting point, but they took us into the building and along the corridors, and pushed us through a group of soldiers who were standing outside a door staring inside; they were all quite silent. The soldiers made way for us, and when they saw us they started cursing. Then we were inside the room and saw why they were so excited. On the floor were the bodies of Russian prisoners who had died and not been buried. I could not imagine what that had to do with us. The Russian N.C.O. said: "You—Red Cross—and those 264 —dead! You kill, yes?" With fury in his eyes he tore the red cross from my arm, and I said: "No, those were wounded who died . . ." But he struck me across the mouth, and said: "Here forty-two—and you two. Here!" "We didn't kill them," I shouted, but the chief said: "It's no use, I'm sorry for your sake—" "Keep your mouth shut!" the Russian shouted at him. The chief took no notice, but looked at me and went on: "I alone bear the—" He did not finish the sentence, because the N.C.O. fired, and he slumped to the floor. I went for the Russian, but the others intervened and knocked me down with their submachine guns. I lay on my back, looking down the muzzle of a pistol, and

the chief was struggling beside me. The N.C.O. fired twice more, and then he looked at me and aimed, and in his eyes there was . . .

The Doctor Two generals and a number of senior officers were standing at the edge of the wood, talking to Lieutenant Colonel Fechter. They talked, loud and excited, and gesticulated violently. Finally they seemed to come to a decision, the colonel saluted, turned, and came back toward us; and the officers watched him in silence. "Our regiment is to be the spearhead," the colonel said to his officers. "The tanks will cover our flanks. When we are across, we shall wheel and attack the village from the flank. Is that clear?" His voice was sharp and decisive and betrayed no trace of anxiety. The objective was the dark stretch of wood on the other side of the wide, level expanse. There were villages to the right and left and, if you looked carefully, you could make out the Russian tanks, guns, and troops lying in wait for us between the houses and the trees, the barns and the cowsheds. The church tower of the village on the right was half destroyed. A dog barked. Along the edge of the wood snowdrops were growing, as well as a lot of yellow cowslips. The two generals went away and mounted their armored vehicles. The engines of the tanks were started, and the Russian guns opened up as if this was the signal for which they had been waiting. Shells burst and a cloud of smoke rose over the edge of the village; shells whistled overhead and crashed into the wood behind us, and some exploded in the field. "You're to take no notice of the wounded. They're to be left for those behind," Fechter said to me. I nodded. Fink shouted: "Forward! Forward!" He turned and looked at me, and for the first time I saw a broad grin on his face. "Forward, doctor; you're coming with us," he said, more loudly than was necessary. We began to run.

Lieutenant Colonel Fechter On that field between the two enemy-occupied villages the remnants of two divisions bled to death. My own regiment ceased to exist. We started running the gantlet with seven tanks to cover our flanks. Six of them were shot up. The field of death—there was no other term for it—was the end of a process that had been in progress a whole year. Throughout that period I had had doubts whether I should survive the war, but now I was practically certain that I would not. The field of death was only one of the appalling situations that inevitably awaited us. But, even if I survive, I am a lieutenant colonel of the Wehrmacht, decorated with the Oak Leaves of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. In my kit I have the letter in which the Fuhrer communicated to me in his own handwriting the award of that high honor. I do not believe that I could live as a prisoner of war.

The world I built up with so much trouble and effort is collapsing in ruins; the world in which I meant something is ceasing to exist. What would be left for me if I survived the war? Life as an end in itself is meaningless; it acquires meaning only from the performance of one's duty and the influence one is able to exercise on one's environment. I am an officer—and, I think, not a bad one. Perhaps from the ethical point of view it may not be an ideal calling; but I feel that fighting for one's country is a job of which a man can be proud. After the war could I become a traveling salesman—assuming that is, that I survived imprisonment? Even now there are still some who refuse to see the truth. Perhaps, because I am determined to act like an officer and remain at my post to the last, some may take me to be one of them. But outward circumstances should have no influence on the behavior of a good soldier. It should make no difference whether one is entering a battle with good prospects of success or a battle that is hopelessly lost in advance. The same obviously applies to the war as a whole. I have always despised officers who regarded war and war-, fare as an undesirable professional risk and looked forward to an assured career with a good pension at the end of it. We have lost the war. I have no more faith in the secret weapons promised us for so long, which were going to swing things in our favor at the last moment. The Fuhrer's order of the day of April 16 was lacking in all sense of reality. Even if the so-called miracle weapon appeared, I can't believe it would affect the outcome. For behind any weapon you have to have men, men different from those with whom we are making war today. Never did we have so many men, never did our industry turn out such quantities of arms and ammunition, as in 1944, the year of our great defeats. The men into whose hands those arms were put did not know what to do with them. They have grown soft. Have I not myself seen brand-new tanks and guns abandoned at the roadside? I no longer believe in the German soldier. Everything that will be said about him after the war will be apologies of the kind invented after the First World War, of the kind always invented by those who have lost the game and have not the strength to admit their failure. The German soldier of 1939, 1940, and 1941 no longer exists. The survivors are soft; all they care about is saving their skins. I saw this with singular clarity on the field of death, and afterward. We had to advance about seven or eight hundred yards to the wood beyond. I set off with the first wave of the regiment and arrived with the last. The survivors were two officers, Lieutenant Colonel Specht and Captain Braun, five N.C.O.'s, of whom three were wounded, and about fifteen men. Among the missing was Fink. I kept stopping and shouting to the men to spread out and not to bunch, and to advance in short rushes; I saw them being mowed down by enemy machine guns, mortars, and artillery. I saw them dwindling and dwindling away. More and more units came out of the wood behind us. Most of them did not get as far as two hundred yards, and the others jumped over their bodies and ran on until they themselves were hit. I saw a general running past me after his car had been shot up under him. He dashed on blindly with wide-open mouth, stumbling and falling and getting up again, and making the same disgraceful exhibition of himself as he had at the conference, when he had behaved like a hysterical woman. He got through. The other general's car drove straight into an exploding heavy shell. I saw the officers of my own regiment die, and other officers as well, and I saw men run-

ning past their own wounded officers, and running on until they died themselves. I saw two men carry a dead officer until a shell wiped out all three of them. I saw an officer carry a wounded man until he was hit himself. I saw a colonel stamp on the face of a wounded man who seized his boot and begged him not to abandon him; the colonel wore the Knight's Cross. I was the last of my regiment to reach the wood, and I saw the astonishment on the faces of those who had got through. More than half were wounded, and the doctor was busy dealing with them already. None of his medical orderlies were left. He worked by himself as quietly and coolly as if he were at a dressing station far behind the line. When he saw me he said: "Got through all right, colonel?" I was relieved to see him and hear his voice, and perhaps I also felt slightly ashamed in his presence. Why not admit it? I had had him posted to my regiment and had set Fink after him because I wanted revenge. I had many bitter hours to thank him for. Months ago, when I got mother's letter, I could not agree with what she had done. And then I found out that Elfie had been arrested. I took leave and went home, but there was nothing I could do in the face of the shameful and disgraceful practices that had slowly become prevalent in Germany during the course of the war. Elfie was not released. I bitterly reproached mother for what she had done, and I left home determined never to return, and I told her so. I held the doctor responsible for all this. He had caused it all. Because of him I had lost Elfie and broken with my mother. He had caused mother to take that disastrous step. She thought she was acting for my sake, that nothing was left but revenge. I understood her, but as a result I lost Elfie for good. And, as I subsequently discovered, Elfie's father, a man I esteemed highly, lost his life as a result. All this made me realize for the first time what Elfie really meant to me. I could see no point now in applying for a staff job. I did not want to be in Germany, I returned to the front, determined to remain with the troops until the end of the war. True, time has taken away some of the bitterness; and, since the doctor rejoined us, I have come to see things more clearly. I saw him at his work, and gradually I came to see that the heart of the matter was the fact that my mother's act of vengeance had had terrible consequences. True, he, the doctor, had been the occasion of it all, but was that his fault? I could well understand him; Elfie is a beautiful woman. I dislike a bad loser, whether in national or in personal affairs. Now, after the field of death, the two of us were suddenly in the same boat. We had survived, but what lay ahead? The general disintegration going on all about us had no influence on the way he did his work. On the contrary, he worked harder than any regimental medical officer I have ever known, and frequently he took on the job of an ordinary medical orderly as well. How far behind me were the days when I thought I should derive some satisfaction in this sea of bitterness from his death. Now, it seemed to me, there was no room for personal differences, and the only question with which I was faced was how to survive without losing honor. After a short rest I ordered the men to carry on. Nobody looked back at the field, which more of our troops were trying to cross. I had my orders to carry out, my duty to do, and what else was there for me to cling to? We crossed to the other side of the strip of wood. I was going to make my way along it, and then attack the village. I knew that it was useless, but I had no alternative.

I began rallying the scattered men. They obeyed only reluctantly. Some of them tried to make off in the other direction deeper into the wood, but I fired a few shots after them, and they came back. Eventually I collected about forty or fifty men, and got them to move along the edge of the wood. When we reached the corner nearest to the village, they refused to go on. They refused to obey my orders; and, though I explained to them that by attacking the village they would save the lives of many of their comrades who still had to run the gantlet of the field, they still refused. I threatened them, and then, for the first time in my life, I actually begged them, tried to cajole them into doing their duty. It made no difference. So I began walking across the open field myself, hoping that they would follow my example. I was mistaken.

The Doctor When I reached the corner of the wood, I saw Fechter turn and start marching off alone toward the village. He walked erect and unhurried, his submachine gun under his arm. The soldiers whom he had been leading lay or sat at the edge of the wood, watching him. One or two stood up and ran off in the direction from which they had come. "What's happening? Where's he going?" I asked a strange corporal. He looked briefly at me, and said: "He's attacking the village." He spoke dryly and factually, and there was no trace of irony in his voice, and also no admiration. He spoke like a case-hardened lawyer saying of a man condemned to death: he is on bis way to the gallows. "The damn fool!" I heard a soldier exclaim, and in his voice there was respect and admiration as well as a trace of bad conscience. Then he rose and picked up his rifle and went off, as if he did not want to see the colonel's end. "Colonel! Colonel!" I shouted, and wanted to go on shouting at him to come back, quickly, at once; it was suicide and useless. But then I fell silent. Of course it was suicide, and I saw that it made sense, that it was the only possible course for an officer who had lost this war that he had made his own. A row of little clouds of dust raced at him across the dry field of stubble and passed him by. The Russians had seen him and were firing at him. And on he went. Russian bullets whined and whistled all around us, and many fell near him. None of our troops fired. And he walked on. One step after the other, tall, slender, erect. The firing from the edge of the wood grew more furious, but he walked on, and then he was hit. He stopped as if he had walked into an invisible obstacle, remained standing for what seemed a long time, and then the strength left his body, he slumped to the ground, tried to get up, crept a little way on all fours, fell on his face, and lay still. "We must fetch him!" I yelled, and looked around me. The faces were apathetic; the men had relapsed into their callousness again. Most of them got up and ran away, bending double. There was no point in looking for help from them; so I ran across the field, picked him up, and carried him back to the wood, and not a shot was fired. He was still alive. It was incredible, but he was still alive.

There were four holes in his chest. His face was very white, and his eyes looked at me as from a great distance; they were no longer here; they were the eyes of a dying man, looking into unknown worlds within himself. He opened his mouth with difficulty and whispered: "I was not a . . ." His lips moved, but no sound came. And then I saw that he had seen and recognized me, and he said: "Be careful ... of Fink ... I was. . . ." Then he died. I stayed beside him, and looked at him. Footsteps approached from behind. I did not look up, but then I recognized Fink's voice. "Is he dead?" I rose to my feet. Fink looked at the body with half-open, veiled eyes, no expression on his face. "Clear out!" I said to him, almost speechless with the rage that suddenly rose .in me. "Clear out! Clear out!" Slowly he raised his eyes from the body and looked at me. He laughed, without moving his lips, and his eyes remained expressionless, like two glass beads. And still he laughed, a dreadful, menacing laugh, that made me start back and sent a shudder down my spine. Then he turned and went away.

The Massacre And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. —Revelation 14: 20

The Doctor This was at the beginning of May, the first or the second, I think; and it was a very hot day. We had been retreating in long, endless columns, crowding the main roads and following crosscountry tracks as well. I sometimes imagined how the whole scene must look from the sky, how the Russian pilots saw it, watching a whole country flee westward; soldiers and civilians, old men and women and children, traveling in covered wagons like the American pioneers, who had set out to conquer a country, and here it was the reverse; people who were fleeing from a country they had conquered, and they crawled across it like endless columns of ants. The tarpaulins on their wagons had been battered and torn by the winter storms (many came from East Prussia), and in many there were also small round holes and sometimes bigger ones—a reminder of having been shot up by Russian machine guns, or of shells which had exploded nearby. Thin rays of sunshine penetrated through the holes into the hot, stuffy interiors, and at night one could see the stars through them and also fires burning. But the people were not interested in the stars or the fires; their only concern was how much longer this was going to last; and, as the fine weather would not last forever, they very much hoped that no new holes would appear in the tarpaulins. It was better to be wet and frozen than to be shot up by Russian aircraft and to have to struggle to protect the wagon and horses against a shrieking mass of humanity desperately searching for cover. Sometimes only one horse was left to pull a wagon weighed down with a household and all its worldly goods. When would these people learn to restrict themselves to bare essentials instead of loading themselves up with baby carriages and beds and mattresses and cupboards? No wonder the horses collapsed. Perhaps, of course, these possessions were really more important even than survival; for they represented the past, which at any rate was something to cling to; for who could say whether there would be a tomorrow? Between the wagons were big and small parties of soldiers and stragglers, everything covered with dust, faces, uniforms, a thick cloud of dust stretched for miles over the endless river flowing west. Overturned wagons by the roadside, sometimes with men and women and children who did not wish to part from their belongings (many of the men were disabled or were prisoners of war, particularly Frenchmen). Beds and cupboards and chairs and boxes and bundles by the roadside, and sometimes the feather beds were torn, and the feathers scattered all over the fields and the road, rising at the slightest breeze and slowly falling to earth. When a tank went by (tanks still existed), or a truck full of soldiers or wounded, or a vehicle loaded high with boxes and equipment, ruthlessly pushing aside the refugees' wagons, sometimes forcing them into the ditch, or even overturning them, the feathers engaged in a frenzied dance. Sometimes a motorcycle dispatch rider, as full of importance and as covered with dust as on the first day, threaded his way through the crowd, telling everybody,

damn it, get out of the way, didn't they know there was a war on? There were old women, middle-aged women, young women, girls (who all looked nice and plump in spite of their drawn, hungry faces, because they wore two or three pairs of trousers, long trousers, belonging to their fathers or their brothers, perhaps because they thought this would make it more difficult for the Russians— just imagine having to remove three or four pairs of trousers and perhaps two or three pairs of underpants—surely even the most brutal Russian would take pity on them rather than go to all that trouble). And pregnant women (one of them had her child under a tree beside the road, I helped her, it was a boy; he weighed at least eight pounds; when I lifted him by the legs and showed him to the woman she said that this was the last straw, but her eyes said the opposite). And nursing mothers, and innumerable children of all ages, Germany's future and their mothers' torment, because what were they to do with them now? Children chewing army bread, toddlers chewing cold potatoes, children pulling handcarts while their younger brothers and sisters hung on at the back, children sitting on bundles, thickly clothed children with dirty faces and curious, astonished, nonunderstanding, hungry eyes; children sucking their thumbs or crying for their mothers, and always crying for food. But a swarm of locusts had descended on the land and devoured everything. Abandoned villages, a calf sucking at the udders of a dead cow by the roadside. And the calf provided a nice change of diet for the men, for they had fought their way through Russia and Poland and had never gone hungry for long; they had always found food somewhere, even if it was buried six feet underground, and they had no intention of starving in Germany. And suddenly one couldn't go on, Russians in front, Russians behind, Russians all around, Russians overhead—Russian fighter-bombers strafing and bombing the fleeing columns, killing and wounding soldiers and women and children and horses. Horses with torn-open bellies and flies swarming around their eyes and nostrils and protruding tongues. Flies on the eyes and mouths of the dead and dying, flies and dust everywhere. So one couldn't go on, and combatant units were ordered to the front of the column. Was there to be no end to it? Ahead of us was a town, a little town surrounded by woods and hills, we had to take it, and take it quickly, because a whole Russian tank army was moving up behind us, led by Rokossovski or Sokolovski or whatever his name was, anyway, some general with a whole army of tanks, a thousand or two thousand or three thousand of them (I would like to know where they all came from, considering that two or three hundred were shot up daily, according to the official communique). So we had to force our way through the town, which was not a Russian strong point; once through it the way would be open to the Elbe and the Americans— who were quite different from those sliteyed, pockmarked Asians of whom we had seen so many pictures (the books in which they appeared were obtainable at any bookstall, and were given free to members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls as a reward for good work, Heil Hitler, signed Group Leader Muller or Mayer or Reincker or whoever he might be, printed on glossy paper with handsome illustrations showing on the left fine specimens of Nordic manhood, sun, fresh air, waves and water, fair hair fluttering in the breeze, young men with resolute faces and girls in short skirts sitting on the grass, Germany's futurer and on the right specimens of revolting Jewish-Bolshevik submen—how appalling to think of their ruling over us). Very well, then, let's have another try, General Muller's still in command, he's as fat as ever, a man of iron will and determination, still chewing that unlit cigar, an eminently dependable leader. So we attacked the town.

A pretty little town, with a main street which went slightly uphill and then broadened out to form a square, with a redbrick town hall, a lot of narrow, timbered houses with pointed gables, and narrow, winding streets leading off it. If I had passed through it as a tourist in peacetime, I would have exclaimed with pleasure. It was just like a carefully constructed toy town, and great pains had been taken to avoid the slightest suggestion of symmetry anywhere. Full of many corners, each different from the last, there were fountains everywhere and treetops overhanging the walls; and, if I had had a small factory in my bag of tricks, I would have put it exactly where it had been put here, at the edge of the town under the hill, where it was half hidden by the wood. But I was not a peacetime tourist, and all this I saw only incidentally, out of the corner of one eye, so to speak; and just as incidentally did I see the place, which had survived the unexpected Russian occupation intact, reduced in the course of a day to a heap of smoldering ruins. Nothing was left standing except here and there a chimney or a blackened wall with gaping windows, and in the midst of the rubble there was a practically undamaged church tower, nothing at all left of the other church. At least one or two Russian regiments were in the surrounding hills; and they continually brought up reinforcements, heaven knows where from; and we had been told that it was only weakly held, and we could take it easily, with our left hand, so to speak. But they were wrong. The town was a trap. We went in with tanks in the lead and infantry sitting on them; then came fully laden armored troop-carriers interspersed with assault guns, then again trucks full of wounded. Last came the infantry, on both sides of the road. Alert and tense faces under the steel helmets, submachine guns at the ready, scarcely a rifle to be seen, camouflage jackets and belts stuffed with hand grenades. No fire came from the houses on the outskirts, the sun shone brightly, a cat sat on a doorstep watching us, the town seemed empty and deserted, and we told ourselves that things were going fine— where were the bloody Russians? Only a hard-boiled sergeant in my troop carrier (according to the badges on his sleeve he had three Russians tanks to his credit) shook his head and said he didn't like it, he had an uncomfortable feeling that had never deceived him yet. Where were all the civilians who were usually standing on the sidewalks or at the windows when one entered a town? They could not all have been evacuated. Then there was a delay, and we stopped just at the entrance to the square. The sergeant climbed out to see what was happening, and he came back and told us there was an antitank obstacle ahead, and at that moment all hell broke loose. The square and the whole of the main street became an inferno of exploding hand grenades and shells, while automatic weapons rattled furiously and men yelled and shouted. Our driver quickly reversed and turned, and I jumped out. I saw the sergeant raise his weapon to fire, but before he did so he slumped to the ground, and his weapon discharged itself. I hastily sought cover behind the vehicle, but it was bad cover, no cover at all, because fire was coming from everywhere, from the narrow streets and the roofs. Mortar shells came sailing over the rooftops, antitank shells came from the antitank barrier and the Russian tanks behind it; tanks emerged from the narrow roads converging on the square and blocked the exits, and a tank appeared behind the doorway of the town hall with its long gun pointing through the door. Men cursed and yelled and scattered in every direction and were mowed down, or sought shelter behind tanks, which were promptly blown to pieces; whereupon they sought shelter behind other tanks. I had to get out of this. Our vehicle caught fire, and a heavy body fell on me—the man died while

jumping out. I jumped to my feet and ran, and flung myself down behind a tank. A number of wounded and unwounded men were taking cover there already; we were relatively safe. But suddenly the tanks started pulling back. I jumped out of the way, and so did a few others, but several were too late; I saw the tracks pass over arms and legs, and one man's head. Oh, God, how they shrieked. And still Russian shells kept crashing into the clusters of men, and the machine guns kept on firing at point-blank range. I started running blindly. I passed an officer who was standing erect amidst the storm shouting orders that nobody heeded, and suddenly he vanished; he simply ceased to exist. I was flung to the ground, branches from the trees that surrounded the square hurtled through the air and one struck me painfully on the shoulder. I lie on the pavement. A thing falls heavily, clatters along the pavement, jumps over a body (only half a body, the top part is missing) and stops in front of me and I look at it and read it and don't understand it, but then I read it again and I do understand: a round metal sign and on it THE GOLDEN STAG, handsome black gothic lettering on a golden background: I jump up and run past The Golden Stag, back, out of here, out of here, out of wild confusion, into trucks, trucks running over bodies, crashing into each other, and with wounded men howling in the trucks. Some fall off, lie there, crawl away, crawl from the burning trucks, burning tarpaulins, and burning people dropping off the trucks into~-the street, writhing, screaming, oh, how they scream, and shells and grenades explode into the running, crawling men. No, we can't go back, assault guns moving up, stop, for Heaven's sake, stop, not over wounded, but the guns roll over the wounded, into position, fire. Now German grenades lob over the tank-barrier, but after the third round a gun is blown up, the gunsight makes an arc through the air and falls with a clank at my feet. The other gun goes on shooting, and now our soldiers open fire and storm the town hall. I lie behind a body on the pavement and see it all: Germans rush at the tank in the doorway and the tank fires into them with its big gun and the machine guns, the Germans fall over, crawl, lie still, scream, others take over, one with a bazooka aims and fires and a long flash of flame and the tank blows up, but we still can't go any further. Russian soldiers are at the windows with machine guns and hand grenades, and a German officer stands outside the town hall and fires at the building, but the gun jams and he scrambles for another gun from one of the dead, the dead don't need it anymore, "You swine," he screams, high shrill, "you swine, there, there, you swine, swine, swine," and now he's hit, he falls to his knees, goes on firing, the gun sinks to the ground, fires into the ground, the officer falls on his face, tries to raise himself, collapses over, dead. And then one can see reinforcement from the back thank God. The square is full of smoke and flashes, for engineers come in with flame throwers, the town hall starts burning, one engineer disappears into the building, an explosion, a body whirls into the street, more men into the building, more houses on fire, detonations in the town hall, a body through the window of the third floor, smacks onto the pavement, silent, yes, I hear: he is silent, collapses, a Russian soldier. The first dead Russian soldier. Amongst a hundred, two hundred, three hundred Germans. And again reinforcement from the back, and I ask myself, what should I do, what is there for me to do. I no longer know and somebody screams, and you run and you can't get through in the back, they are all pushing forward, into the cover of the German tanks, they are firing wildly, turning in circles, turning over bodies, till one after the other is blown up. I run back and throw myself behind a wrecked tank. Here there are about forty or fifty soldiers, most of them dead or wounded, and the Russian machine guns tear 'into the shaking heap, soldiers that have been wounded two,

three, four times, then deliverance, pain screams, help, help, help, deliverance, new troops pushing up from the back and we must get through, we must, it's the only way. Over the bodies, jump over the bodies, and the wounded, and watch it that they don't hold you back, I am half-buried under a tree and hear my own screams, I work free and run, God, where, where, what shall I do. I grab a gun and try to fire it, I fire blind, at a house, you swine, you damn swine, stop, stop it. The gun is empty, and full of rage I hurl it against the house. What must I do, what now, where, and then I remember: I am a doctor. I crawl towards the first wounded, a sergeant, a badly shattered shoulder looks terrible, but now I'm back home, now I know what I must do, I have seen worse wounds, now it's easier; but the sergeant screams at me to go away, it's all over, we are all lost, over, over he screams you God damn swine, over, and crawls to a body, takes his machine gun, raises himself and fires with one hand till the gun is empty. He looks around, tries to crawl to another body for a gun, but it doesn't work anymore, and he can't go on, he takes a hand grenade out of his pocket, primes it with his teeth and puts his hand with the grenade under his body and waits, and looks at me, we look each other in the eye, his eyes already half gone, not here anymore, and his body lifts and is torn apart, and a wave of hot air strikes my face, and blood, and O God, O God in Heaven, please let us stop, let them stop, stop it, please, O God, God in Heaven, please, stop it, please, please, stop it, God in Heaven, Our Father, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, please stop it. I'm lying on my stomach, my face pressed into the pavement, the sergeant's tornoff leg in front of my eyes, only one leg. Two, three soldiers jump over me, more and more of them, reinforcements, and they fire from the hip, storm a house, a sign on the house: H. PIERSCHIGG, GROCERIES. Tongues of flame through the shop windows, flames through the first floor windows, enormous flames through the town hall windows, and the heat is unbearable, O Lord, O Lord, please stop it, stop it, I have to get out, away from the burning houses, I have to get up, I tell myself to get up, and I stumbled over bodies behind the wrecked tanks, heaps of bodies, yes, I see it: blood runs over the pavement, and through the drains like red and black rain water, and gurgles in the sewers like rain water, like a river, like blood in a river, flowing lazily, blood in the drains, and O Lord, look: blood in the sewers.

I saw myself looking at the stream of blood, I heard myself telling myself what to do, and found myself doing it. I jumped over the stream of blood, picked up a wounded man and carried him, and only after several steps did I realize that he was dead. I dropped him and picked up another, and carried him without knowing where. There was no way out, we were caught like rats in a trap, and I wondered why I was still alive. The wounded man was heavy, and he sobbed and muttered, and I put him down in the doorway of a house that our troops had captured, and started bandaging him. This is what you must do, I said to myself, this is all you can do, and so you must do it. Lord God in heaven, let this cease. But it did not cease. Russian gunfire continued to sweep the square and the street. German guns joined in, reinforcements moved forward past me, looking breathless, determined, and terrified, terrified, yet ready for death; and somewhere behind them was the fat general with the unlit cigar dangling from his angrily compressed lips. We must take this damned town; we have no choice; so forward, men, forward to the Elbe and the Americans, who say "Okay" and have pockets full of chocolate and chewing gum, or whatever it is. And so the men went forward, and a woman dashed from a burning house carrying a child in

her arms and tried to block their way. I saw her open her mouth and heard her high, piercing screams. "Stop, you criminals!" she screamed. "Stop!" The child in her arms was dead, you could tell from its dangling head and limbs, but she pressed it to her bosom and screamed at them to stop; and I tried not to hear her voice or to look at her; but her screams went on, high and shrill, until they were drowned by the sound of other human voices which spread over the square from somewhere like waves spreading over water. The sound rose in a crescendo from an unseen starting point, and suddenly it was everywhere, echoing from the walls of the houses, though sometimes it was temporarily drowned by the rattle of machine guns and the explosion of shells and the crackle of flames and the hot wind from the flames. But all the same it went on, and it was everywhere, like the terror that accompanied it. The Russians were attacking. They attacked and were beaten off, they attacked again and were beaten off again, but they came again and again, and the battle degenerated into innumerable little battles for ——single houses or even single rooms. They changed hands twice, three times, sometimes even four times, and the frenzied cries or tense silence of the combatants hung over the town like a thick cloud, as thick as the cloud of suffering of the wounded in the square and the main street. This cloud now spread like a cancer—from street to street, from house to house, up the little alleyways and the back yards, until fire swallowed it all up. Fire roared from the windows, swallowing up both combatants and wounded. Among the former were women wearing steel helmets and armed to the teeth with submachine guns and hand grenades and rifles; they abandoned their convoys and their children to fight their way through this dreadful town, and they fought furiously and fearlessly, and went on until they were killed. I saw a woman fall from a house with her clothes on fire and lie writhing and screaming on the ground. I tried to go to her help and take her to the first-aid point I had managed to set up in an empty room (it was the third, I had been driven from two others by fire), but the heat drove me back, and she went on burning, lying on the ground and screaming, and then her screams died away. The fire blackened her naked body, it burned great holes in it, and consumed one of her breasts. Don't look, don't look, I said to myself, don't look, she's a woman. O Lord, this is enough, enough. But all the same I looked. Her dead body went on burning in the fire from the house; it swelled, and the flesh burst, and along the street a man came walking erect, bare-headed, holding in his hand a book. He walked slowly, one step after the other, taking no notice of the heat or the woman's body, he was far away and did not feel the heat, he walked past me with his book in his hand without seeing me, he was alone with his book, which was the Bible. He was an army chaplain, his face was blackened by smoke, his hair and eyebrows were singed, his bloodstained hands were blistered, but he ignored them, and his voice was hoarse and monotonous and audible from afar, and he was reading from his Bible. "And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." He passed by, and vanished among the troops who still came moving up, but his voice remained audible until it was drowned by the noises of the battle, which went on until evening.

Evening: The battle for the town continued, unceasing, and then it seemed to me a slight pause set in, which both sides used to gather strength for the last effort. Our troops had taken part of the town, and I set up a dressing station in the basement of a big villa; the dressing station quickly extended to the whole house. Most of the wounded found their way to me, though a number of medical orderlies gathered round me, whom I sent out to bring them in. "Where are we to begin?" one of them asked me. "Here, right outside the house," I told him. So they started out on a job they knew to be hopeless, as I knew it to be myself. Some never came back, and I wondered where they had gone in the red darkness that gradually sank over the town; perhaps they were killed, or quite possibly they had had enough of risking their lives for others. More appeared, however; and some of them vanished, too; and then two doctors turned up, one, a lieutenant, who quickly recovered in the familiar surroundings and started doing good work. The other, a captain, was in such a state that he could do nothing, though he was unwounded: he sat on the steps, rocking back and forth and muttering; when I shouted at him for heaven's sake to pull himself together and get to work, he jumped in terror, picked himself up, and began wandering around among the wounded. Then he sat down again, rocking back and forth, muttering, and sometimes laughing a little. I sent two orderlies to look for medical supplies. They returned with a brand-new Russian ambulance of American make full of dressings, drugs, instruments—my first encounter with the fabulous penicillin. They had found the ambulance in a side street, both the driver and his helper dead. Soon afterward another medical officer came in, slightly wounded himself, and quietly went to work; and more and more helpers arrived, mainly civilians from the refugee columns, seeking protection for the night; they thought they would be safer among noncombatants. But also more and more wounded were brought in or dragged themselves, they were lying everywhere, in the building, in the yard, in the garden, in the street, in the adjoining buildings and streets. I didn't count them, I didn't know how many there were, perhaps five hundred, no, more: a thousand, two thousand, with makeshift bandages, and after a while they all had the same face, no matter how they were wounded, no matter how they looked, they all had one face, the wounds of all the wounds of one, the hurt, the beaten. And if I thought of the possibility that all those that lay in the square and the main street and everywhere in the town, the uncounted and uncountable, might be brought here, this thought no longer appalled me: a thousand or three thousand or five thousand—what did it matter? We could help one hundred, at best perhaps a hundred and fifty. Late in the evening another medical officer arrived. He was a major, and he took charge as a matter of course, and I was grateful to him for it. He said confidently that the Russians were going to be thrown out of the town, and the eyes behind his glasses showed that he believed it. "Reinforcements are on the way," he announced. "You've done a magnificent job here. What's your name? I'll make a note of it. Please start dealing with the wounded yourself. What did you say your name was?" He was extremely efficient, and managed to conjure medical orderlies out of nowhere, to say nothing of other helpers, many of them women refugees. He even managed to get the confused captain to lend a hand.

Night: When I went out or glanced through the smashed windows, I saw the night burning, red, sparkling, I smelled it, and I heard the sound of fighting, which had broken out with renewed fury; some of our troops had supposedly broken out of the town, and when the wounded man 1 was attending, heard this, he screamed: "They will leave us here, they will leave us here to die, they will leave us ... I" I tried to reassure him, but I wasn't very convincing, for I, too, believed that we would be left behind. How could we be evacuated, and who was there to do it? I was working by the light of a flashlight, when the major announced that he had got hold of some acetylene lamps and had had the entrance hall blacked out. "Now you can carry on in the hall, young man. I've had a table put there for you," he said. So I went on working in the hall, which was packed with wounded, though some space had been left in the middle, where a fine, big, brightly polished mahogany table was standing; this was my operating table. I operated only on wounded for whom there was some hope; the major had taken the responsibility of selecting them for me. In one corner of the hall huddled about fifteen or twenty Russian prisoners who had been brought in by the medical orderlies, and more, they said, were outside. A corporal with an arm wound had appointed himself their guard; he sat on the steps with his submachine gun on his knees and does not take his eyes off them. In the deep shadow under the staircase sat the woman I had seen and heard screaming in the street; she was still holding her dead child and refused to give it up, and once in a while she looked up with staring eyes which reflected the light of the lamp and called out, "Criminals! Criminals!" Pictures, pictures, pictures, words, screams, outside the night and men coming out of it into the bright light of the lamp, and returning into the night; the lamp over the table is the center, and I and my hands. The nurse who helped me was old and tired and very taciturn; new faces kept appearing on the table, but they were always the same faces, the major kept on giving me orders, and I kept on seeing the eyes of the wounded, my back hurt, and every now and then a mist passed over my eyes, instruments, hastily cleaned, dizzy, no, no pervitin, it had been difficult enough to break the habit, another wounded, not much to be done, and I felt the night passing, coming to an end, and I didn't think of the next day. Before dawn the major disappeared, and with him most of the orderlies and helpers and nearly all the women. Only the nurse remained and went on working with compressed lips (she had come from Breslau with the refugee column). She was ashen and near the point of collapse, and terrified about what lay ahead, but she remained.

First Wounded We lay there, one next to the other. Once I tried to count them, but I only got as far as thirtytwo. Then the bodies, arms, legs, blood-soaked bandages tangled before my eyes and I could not go on counting. I was not badly wounded, leg wound. But I could not walk, and so an army chaplain brought me here. He carried me on his shoulders the whole way, though he was not a strong man. The doctor bandaged my leg. I was only worried that I could not walk without help. Imprisonment?

The doctor worked under the lamp, silent and tireless. He had taken off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, his shirt and trousers were covered with blood. One could see that he was completely exhausted, but he radiated a strong, inexplicable calm, which communicated itself to me and many of the others. When I looked at the woman under the stairs, holding her dead child, I stopped believing in the words of the chaplain who had brought me here: God is keeping His eyes on us. I think, God closed His eyes many years ago.

The Army Chaplain O Lord, forgive my cowardice. I ran through the streets and preached perdition. I carried wounded to the first-aid station, because I hoped for my own safety there; and I left the many dying alone in the streets. O Lord, give me the strength to go through the trials you have put upon us. Do not let me weaken in my help to the dying in this burning night, filled with suffering and terror. Let me give solace, and not give in to my fears. O Lord, forgive me for having doubted you when I saw the woman with the dead child in her arms. I believe that the times you have sent us are only a step on the road to you: Forgive us our trespasses. O Lord, your wrath is terrible, give us your love, forgive us, O Lord, forgive me, don't let me . . ."

Second Wounded When I woke up I saw that he had amputated my leg. I don't know if this was necessary, perhaps; but one knows that those army doctors aren't that particular; it isn't their own arms and legs they cut off. I hadn't really seen the leg when I was brought here; and, when I came to, the cutoff leg hurt. I watched the doctor working under the lamp; I only saw his back; and when he turned to say something to the nurse I saw his face; it was wet and white in the faint light, like the face of a dead man, like all the faces around me. He dropped an arm into a pail; the hand still stuck out; the fingers were twisted and yellow; and it looked as if a man had been stuffed into the pail, who wanted to get out, like a drowning man reaching out of the water, this one just out of the pail. ... I felt sick and had to vomit and looked the other way, but there were only two things one could look at: the doctor and the hand reaching out of the pail or the woman with the dead child in her arms, and she started screaming again with her eternal: "Criminals, criminals! Stop ... 1" I couldn't stand it any more, and shouted at her to shut up.

Third Wounded My neighbor, a corporal, his uniform covered with ribbons, screamed at the woman with the dead child. I could understand it: they had cut off his leg; he wasn't quite there yet; he just knew that we wouldn't get out of here, and the woman got on his nerves. I told him to take it easy! the woman couldn't help it; she was completely confused; you only had to look at her face. The

woman didn't hear him; she didn't notice anybody, didn't see anybody; she either screamed or cursed, or rocked the dead child in her arms and sang something. Second Wounded: I don't have to look at her face, I know what it looks like. First Wounded: Then you shouldn't yell at her. Second Wounded: I know what it looks like. But I also know what it used to look like. Third Wounded: What do you mean? Second Wounded: Don't you know? Haven't you seen it? "Heil dir, mein Fuhrer," ecstatic and transfigured, enraptured and submitting when the Fuhrer spoke, now horror and dread, but then: "Heil dir, mein Fuhrer," up with the arm— Third Wounded: We all did it. Second Wounded: I saw them, the way they stared at him driving through the streets in his Mercedes; no man looked at him that way; the women, "Heil dir, mein Fuhrer!" Germany's future! You have given us bread and you will lead us into days, so glorious ... First Wounded: Stop it! Second Wounded: Out of my womb I will bear you a hero. Every one of them wished her son to be a hero, he should be a hero, but he also should come back, of course. And then, when we really had to go, then they suddenly realized that this was serious; and, when I came back from Poland I was a hero; the civilians were through, I was a hero, I smelled of hero, of sweat and leather, of guns; and, after weeks without a woman, how exciting you are, my hero; legs apart, for you my hero; how did you get the Iron Cross, how many Poles did you kill; no, no, I don't want to hear it; it is terrible; tell me more. We pretend to be heroes, because they want us that way; with him I am safe, he looks after me and my children, and from time to time we have to prove that we can do it. "Heil dir, mein Fuhrer"— they all wanted heroes; and then came the bombs; and we poor, innocent women and children! Why in hell do they keep on talking about the children? Then the other heroes came with their planes; this they hadn't expected; and then they came on foot, the ones of the other side; they have to open their legs for them, not willingly, of course; and we are the criminals—did you hear it?—because we lost the war and because they had to flee, it's our fault. "Heil dir, mein Fuhrer"—where is he now? Now it's their turn, as it's been our turn for six years, and: Stop it, you criminals! And they say, if women would rule the world, there wouldn't be any war. Christ, what nonsense! Have you ever been in a German girls' camp? I have, and I tell you: they would cut off one of their breasts, to be able to shoot better. You've heard of women partisans? They got a hold of a friend of mine; no man would have done what they did; but we poor, innocent women! I can't hear it any more, I can't look at them any more! First Wounded: How do you know that she . . . Second Wounded: No. Of course not. Afterward it wasn't anybody. And before it wasn't anybody. We were all against it. Third Wounded: Nonsense! Second Wounded: Now we are criminals, but where do we come from? Who bore us? Who taught us to walk and to talk? Who told us stories? Somebody always gets killed or eaten by a witch in all those fairy tales—and we are supposed to be heroes ... as if it wouldn't hurt when . . . here, look at my leg! Stop it, stop it, stop that damn crying! Third Wounded: Don't yell like that.

The Woman why does the soldier scream what's the matter with him they all scream and groan and why do they do it criminals they have him on their conscience but i won't tell them they think i don't know that the child is dead i know it sleep my baby sleep your mummy is right here i don't want to tell them that they killed him it was like that they threw a handgrenade into the cellar and there were civilians there and no russians they had already left but the day before they did what we expected and we thought fine now it's over and we got through thank god no more war and after a while it will get better and one of the russians gave me some bread for the child there are some good ones they aren't all bad we've lost the war and they haven't had a woman for months and suddenly woman woman come woman and screaming didn't help my neighbor said good god good god did it happen to you too it's terrible nobody was spared and if i am honest i must say it wasn't so bad just let it happen struggling doesn't help and if you close your eyes that was a man i tell you half crazy three times in a row and i ask you ours can't do that any more with that food of course it's bad if more than one they almost tore her apart that woman from number seventeen poor thing she'll probably die and her husband had to watch and didn't say a word didn't move that coward horrible sleep my baby i know you're dead sleep my baby we thought the war was over but then our men came and at first we were glad and happy when we heard they were coming but the russians locked us in the cellar and then our people threw a handgrenade into the cellar stop it you criminals stop it you criminals stop it stop it and most of us were killed right away my father too and the child too sleep my baby the germans threw a handgrenade nothing happened to me but the child o lord o lord why they threw a handgrenade. . . . "What's the time?" said the doctor. "I don't know," answered the nurse. "Do you think this man's got a chance?" he asked. "In normal conditions, yes, but not in these." "You'd better go now. We'll manage without you." "Manage?" "You'd better go before daylight," he said. "What wouldn't I give for a cup of coffee!" "Do you think we could get some?" "Where?" "The major would certainly manage it." "He's gone," said the nurse. "Vanished. Like all those with the loudest mouths." "Who's left?" "The young lieutenant, I think. Lieutenant Werner has collapsed—he has lost a lot of blood." "So we're the last of the Mohicans. Let's have that man on the table. What's his trouble?" "Thigh artery, I think." "I've never sewed up an artery in my life. Shall we try? Don't you think we could scrounge some coffee from somewhere?" "I'll see what I can do," said a medical orderly.

"Shall we have a shot at the artery?" said Braun. "Why not?" said the nurse. "You'll manage it." "Well, in God's name, then."

The Nurse That young man performed miracles with his barely healed hands. I have seen great surgeons at work, and I have attended operations that afterward were talked about for years in medical circles, but I have never seen anyone operate in these conditions. With a young medical orderly as anesthetist and inadequate instruments—in those conditions most of the surgeons I know would not have dared remove an appendix. He gave me confidence with his clever, skillful fingers, his calm and concentration, and the few words that he occasionally spoke. I tried to imitate him, and think only about my work and not about what would happen when the Russians came. But I could not do it for long. I could not concentrate on what we were doing and shut my mind completely to what was going on all around us. When I heard some explosions quite close- to us, I knew that I would not just wait for things to happen, and that nothing would stop me from making an end of them myself.

The Doctor Why did she refuse to go? Why didn't she try to get out of the town while the going was good, as the others had done? She worked magnificently. Without her beside me, without her unshakable, grim calm and confidence, I doubt whether I could have carried on. Her dry "You'll manage it" hung in the air unspoken between us and continually gave me the strength to go on, in spite of the leaden exhaustion that sometimes put me in an extraordinarily remote, absent state of mind, in which I was not really there at all; but somehow I just went on working automatically. I sewed up the artery, and I think I did a good job. When I had finished I looked at the boy's face. He was a Luftwaffe auxiliary, barely fifteen or sixteen years old; he was very pale, and had a slight smile on his face, like a sleeping child. I could not take my eyes off him, and I suddenly heard myself praying for him. He was the last patient I operated on that night. When at last I looked up I saw Fink standing beside me. I had not heard him come in. A submachine gun was slung over his shoulder; he was holding his upper arm with one hand. The hand and the sleeve were bloodstained. "Good that I've found you," he said in his lifeless voice. Lifeless though it was, I thought I detected in it a barely perceptible note of triumph. I found myself unable to answer and unable to move. The inevitable was upon me, and I was paralyzed. The inevitable was about to happen, here and now, though I did not yet know what it was.

The Nurse "Good that I've found you, doctor," the strange master sergeant said. The doctor said nothing. They looked at each other, and seemed to know each other, and there was something in the air between them. I could feel it distinctly, as one invariably feels the hostility between two men suddenly confronting each other. But this time it was much more intense than usual; and it electrified everyone there, though up to that moment each of them had been solely preoccupied with his own suffering. "You are coming along with us, doctor," said the sergeant. He took a step nearer, and let go of his upper arm. His hand was bloodstained and his sleeve stiff with crusted blood. "No," the doctor replied. He paused for a moment, and added: "I can't leave here." "You're coming with us," the sergeant repeated. He spoke emphatically and, I thought, menacingly, though without changing his tone of voice. The doctor turned and looked at me; and when I saw the desperate expression on his face I was shocked. "What's the next case, nurse?" he asked calmly. He wiped his face with his hand, and I noticed that it was trembling. "Come on! Get moving!" he shouted to the orderlies who were standing by the table, staring open-mouthed at the scene. The sergeant stood motionless for a moment. Then with slow, decisive movements he took the pistol from his holster and released the safety catch. "What are you doing?" I shouted at him, but he took no notice. There was dead silence, except for the singing of the woman with the dead child in her arms; she had been singing all night. In the silence one of the Russian wounded called out for water and then said something else. At this an extraordinary change came over the sergeant. A sudden convulsion went through him, and his body stiffened. He turned his head in the direction from which the Russian voice had come, looked at me, and said: "Have you been treating those swine?" "If by that you mean the wounded, of course! What else?" I said. "And now get out of here and let us get on with our work!" He took no notice, but walked rapidly toward where the Russians were lying, stepping over the wounded, who looked up at him in terror. "Stop! What are you going to do?" the doctor shouted; but he took no notice of him, either. He stopped in front of the Russians, turned, and called out to the doctor, who was staring at him in horror: "Your proteges, eh? As I suspected!" His face was somehow changed; it was gray, immobile, dead, turned to stone; his underlip dropped, and then he raised his pistol and fired, the Russian yelled, and then he fired again at another Russian; the sight was too much for me; I covered my eyes with my hands and heard myself screaming.

One of the wounded

When the sergeant fired for the second time the doctor raced toward him, not caring whether he trod on the wounded or not, snatched the submachine gun from the knees of the corporal who was sitting on the stairs, and called out in a voice that penetrated to one's marrow: "Fink!" The sergeant wheeled around, looked at the doctor, and his face twisted into a horrible grimace—how often have I seen that face in close combat! But he did not have time to raise his pistol. A deafening volley came from the submachine gun, and the sergeant slumped like a deflated rubber doll, but he did not drop to the floor at once; the doctor went on firing; and I saw the bullets tearing into the sergeant's uniform. Then he fell, struggled for a moment or two, and lay still. The doctor, not taking his eyes off the dead man, put the submachine gun back on the corporal's knees. Then he turned and said to the orderlies: "Take him away." The nurse was lying on the table, uttering high-pitched, piercing, monotonous screams; and the only person present who was unmoved was the woman with the dead child, which she kept rocking in her arms, singing softly all the time. Then a loud, cold voice came from the door. "Doctor, come along with us," it said. None of us had seen them. They were standing in the doorway, with their submachine guns at the ready, and only gradually did it dawn on me that they were SS men. The doctor looked quite calm. He nodded, and with slow, jerky movements put on his jacket over his bloodstained shirt, and said to the orderlies: "Fetch Lieutenant Werner; perhaps he will be able to carry on. If he can't, the young lieutenant can try." Then he made as if to go, but the SS man at the door said: "Don't forget your cap." The doctor looked for his cap, found it by the stairs, put it on, picked up his bag, and they left, leaving the door ajar; and outside there was the first light of dawn.

Cain Since midnight the guns have been silent on all fronts. By order of the Grand Admiral the Wehrmacht has given up the hopeless struggle. This brings to an end nearly six years of heroic endeavor, which brought us great victories, but also heavy defeats. The German Wehrmacht was at last honorably defeated by overwhelming superiority of strength. The German soldier, loyal to his oath, performed unforgettable deeds in the service of this country. The unique achievements of front and country will receive their proper recognition in the final judgment of history. The achievements and sacrifices of the members of the armed forces by land, sea, and air will not fail to earn our opponents' respect. Every member of the armed forces can therefore lay down his arms honorably and with pride, and in the hardest hours of our history go boldly and confidently to work for the future of our country. In this hour the Wehrmacht remembers those who died in the face of the enemy. The dead pledge us to unconditional loyalty to a fatherland bleeding from innumerable wounds, and to obedience and discipline. (Extract from the last Wehrmacht communiqué, May 9, 1945)

I There were eight of them, and Captain Karl Braun was the ninth; he was to accompany them on their way west. They were Oberscharfuhrer Franz Bartsch, the leader of the party; Scharfuhrer Ludwig Drescher, of the Death's Head brigade; Unterscharfuhrer Albert Konig; Unterscharfuhrer Richard Klinker; Rottenfuhrer Gerhard Liebritz; Rottenfuhrer Siegfried Baur; SS man Otto Benz; and Dr. Peter Moos who, like Scharfuhrer Drescher, belonged to the Death's Head brigade. Throughout the flight Moos was exceedingly laconic; only on the last night did what was on his mind burst out of him, and a few moments later he was dead. They escaped from the town by way of the wood behind the factory. They were fired at when they crossed a track in the early morning light, and Baur was wounded above the elbow. Braun was able to deal with the wound only very cursorily, because Bartsch insisted on their going on; he said that the wound could be taken care of later. So they went on in extended single file, with the wounded man in the middle; he must have been in severe pain, but he did not complain. They advanced cautiously, step by step, with tense faces and guns at the ready, looking anxiously to all sides, their haversacks and pockets heavy with ammunition and hand grenades stuffed in their belts. When one or another trod on a branch and made it crack, there were muttered curses. Couldn't the fool be more careful? Thus they advanced through the dancing checkerboard of light and, shade, with rustling brown leaves under their feet; and the noises of battle slowly receded behind them. Their gliding forms pressed on remorselessly; and not till the sun was high over the covering of young foliage did Bartsch order a rest.

"So we meet again," said Dr. Peter Moos, with an un-amused smile on his fair, sweating face. "What's happened to Max?" "I don't know," said Braun. "Can you help me, please?" But the SS doctor did not seem to hear. He sat down under a tree and relapsed into his brooding silence, and every now and then his face twitched. "Do you know each other?" said Bartsch. "We were students together," Braun answered. "What does it look like?" Bartsch asked. "I must put the arm in a splint. I need some firm, straight branches." Bartsch ordered Benz, the youngest member of the party, to fetch some branches and asked the wounded man whether he felt able to go on. "Yes, it's only my arm," he said. "You were lucky." Bartsch watched Braun at work. He was a man of medium height, with broad shoulders, sharp features, and very bright blue eyes, and he was the only member of the party who did not sit down. "What do you think of it?" he asked. Braun shrugged his shoulders. "Will he be able to come with us?" "That depends on how far you're going." "Of course I can come with you," said the wounded man, and Braun detected an undertone of panic in the man's voice. "That's why we brought you with us," Bartsch said to Braun. "Why? I can't carry him," said Braun. "If anyone of us is wounded, you are to help him. We've got to have a doctor with us." He looked at the SS doctor and added: "He's not much use at the moment." "It's just that he's got the wind up," said Konig. "He's half crazy with fear." "I'm not in the least interested in what happened between you and the master sergeant," said Bartsch. "That's got nothing whatever to do with me." "He was going to kill the Russian—" Braun began, but Bartsch interrupted. "I saw . . . We are under orders to make our way to South Germany. If such things as courtmartials still exist when we get there, we'll hand you over, of course." "The Americans are in South Germany," said Drescher. "He'll get a medal for killing one of our people." "How do you propose to get to South Germany?" asked Braun. "First we'll get to Franconia, and then we'll see," said Bartsch. "The Alpine redoubt, I presume?" "Round the back way through the Erz Gebirge." The wounded man tried to laugh. "You may get as far as that, perhaps; but with that wound you'll never get to South Germany," said Braun. "You've no idea how tough we are," said the wounded man, looking at Bartsch as if for confirmation and reassurance. But Bartsch ignored him. Still addressing Braun, he went on: "If you try to run away, we'll shoot you." His voice was as matter-of-fact as it had been throughout, and Braun had not the slightest doubt that he meant what he said.

They avoided the roads, bypassed villages and joined none of the parties of wandering German troops, many of whom had thrown away their arms; and those who wanted to join the little party were sent away. The group spent the whole of one day hiding in the undergrowth near a road along which long columns of Russian tanks, infantry, guns, and trucks moved past. After nightfall they broke through a gap in the column, crossed, and vanished into the wood on the other side. Behind them they heard shouting and some shots, but these grew fainter until they were swallowed up in the silence of the forest. On and on they went southwest. They reached some wooded foothills, and had no difficulty in getting food from isolated farmhouses; if it was refused, they helped themselves. In deep ravines through which rapid, crystal-clear streams flowed they were able to quench the thirst of those hot and exhausting days. They came to quiet little villages that had been spared by the war, with pointed steeples, barking dogs, and crowing cocks at dawn, and saw fear and mistrust in the eyes of the inhabitants of the isolated houses. But sometimes they also saw hope in people's eyes at the sight of the SS insignia on their uniforms and the death's heads on Drescher and the SS doctor's collar and cap. Bartsch made laconic inquiries about the way and asked about Russian troops in the neighborhood, and a terrified old peasant acted as their guide over the mountain crest. "You'll soon be in Czechoslovakia," he said. One boy said to them: "You're going to the Alpine redoubt, aren't you? That's where all our troops are going, aren't they, because that's where the Fuhrer is, isn't he? It can't be true that the Fuhrer's dead. I don't believe it!" A deep valley, with endless columns of German vehicles drawn up and hundreds of troops resting by the roadside, campfires, overturned trucks and guns lying around, charred wrecks. They crossed the road and camped for the night somewhat apart from the others. Silence accompanied them as they passed through the throng of men, as well as hostile glances. But most of the glances were merely indifferent. "They'd like to eat us alive," said Drescher, his bony face twisted with anger. "With all the stuff that's lying around everywhere we could go on fighting for another three years," said Konig. "Cowards!" said the wounded man. "Lying around waiting for the Russians to come and put them in the bag. Damned cowards!" His voice was weak, and he could barely sit upright. "Strange, isn't it?" said the SS doctor. These were the first words he had spoken for a long time. "What's strange?" asked Braun, but got no answer. The ground was warm, and it struck him that now they were passing through pine woods. He wondered whether to make a dash for it down the slope to the troops by the road, who were only about a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards away. But even if he got to them, would they give him any protection? These men had survived; and the war was over; and who at this stage would think it worthwhile to risk his life by defying the SS, who in their grim determination were so different from everyone else? And in any case he would probably never get farther than a few yards; the SS men had their weapons always at the ready. He sat at the edge of the wood, looking down at the road. A company, or perhaps it was the remnants of a battalion or even of a regiment, had formed up. An officer was making a speech, his voice floated faintly up to them, and the soldiers sang: "Germany, Sacred Word," and dispersed. The officer remained for a long time, and Klinker said:

"Now they're going home. Not a bad idea, either." During the night Baur, the wounded man, became delirious. Up to then he had kept going, better than Braun had expected, but the long trek had been too much for him. Next morning he had a high fever. Bartsch and Liebritz carried him down to the troops by the roadside. When they came back Liebritz said that they had left him in the care of a medical officer who had fifteen or twenty wounded men in his charge. The medical officer had said that he would get Baur another uniform, because the Russians made short shrift of the Waffen SS, particular^ prisoners who fell into their hands individually. He, the medical officer, had a lot of friends in the Waffen SS, and once an SS unit had rescued him and his men from Russian encirclement; that was something he would never forget. "Don't worry," he had said, "the boy's too young to be shot. My men won't give him away." "So there are still some decent ones left," said Konig. "We're like outcasts to be shot at sight," said the SS doctor. "What else did you expect?" Braun asked. "Shut up!" said Drescher. Bartsch put his torn map back in his pocket and said: "Without Baur we'll be able to get along faster. When we're in Czech territory, we shall have to be more careful than ever." "Czech territory?" said Konig. "You mean the Sudetengau." "Don't you live somewhere around here?" asked Klinker. "Yes, not very far from here," said Konig. "Wouldn't you like to go there?" "What do you think they'd do to me if I did?" Konig said violently. "What do you think they'd do to us?" "The swine I" said Klinker. "And in spite of the fact that the Czechs didn't suffer at all. They had a wonderful time. Not a bit like the Poles," said Drescher. "What happened to the Poles?" asked Braun. "Shut up!" said Drescher sharply. "Come on, it's time to get moving," said Bartsch. They made a wide circuit around two or three mountain villages, stocked up with bread and bacon at a farm, rested in a deep, protected hollow, went on, started climbing, scrambled up thickly overgrown slopes, came to rock and rubble with rare, straggling vegetation, spent a cold night, crossed a bare mountain pass, saw aircraft overhead, and came to wooded country again. Bartsch looked occasionally at his compass and decided in which direction to go, and on one occasion took a long time looking at his map before nodding with satisfaction and pointing to a steeple visible over the top of a steep mountain. "That comes from knowing one's stuff," he said. "We've kept our direction perfectly." They went around the mountain, waded through a stream, crossed a road hurriedly one at a time, scrambled up the slope on the other side, and then took a rest at the edge of the wood. Klinker pointed to the village with the steeple down below and said: "Russians." Among the houses two or three Russian trucks were visible, and some soldiers were hanging about. Konig said: "Our luck's still holding."

They went deeper into the wood. "I hope that civilian won't give us away," said Liebritz. "What civilian?" "There was a man standing at the bend of the road. I saw him distinctly." They went uphill for another hour, and then downhill again, and finally Bartsch ordered a rest. Drescher took off his boots and showed Braun his blistered heels. "Put some plaster on them, doctor," he said. "That's the last straw," said Konig. "We're not used to so much walking," said the SS doctor. "Up to now Drescher and I have let others do the walking for us." He giggled softly, Drescher frowned at him, and Klinker said: "Concentration camp inmates, you mean?" The SS doctor giggled more loudly, and Drescher said to the others: "He's gone crazy. Always has been a bit. Ow! Can't you be a bit more careful?" This last remark was meant for Braun, who was spreading iodine on his heels. Braun silently laid his iodine and brush aside, rose to his feet, walked a few paces away, and sat down. "What's the meaning of this?" said Drescher. "You can manage by yourself, my friend," said Braun, lighting himself a cigarette. His hands were trembling. "Why in hell do you think we brought you along, sawbones? First he kills one of our people and then . . . Come along, finish the jobl" Braun slowly rose to his feet, walked over toward Drescher, and said: "Get up!" "Have you gone mad?" "Stand up!" Drescher turned to Bartsch, and said: "What's the meaning of this?" But Bartsch merely looked at them. "Stand up!" Braun said quietly for the third time, and Drescher rose slowly to his feet. Braun hit him, once, and Drescher collapsed. He then turned to Bartsch and said: "Teach your people how to behave toward an officer." Bartsch looked at him and nodded. The SS doctor went over to where Drescher was lying, tapped his shoulder with the tip of his boot, and then did the same again, giggling with satisfaction. Drescher slowly came round, and made for Braun, but the SS doctor said to him: "Take it easy. You've got to get used to the idea that it's other people's turn now. Don't start anything with him." Drescher, who was now sitting up, looked fixedly at Braun, wiped his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand, and fumbled for the pistol in his holster, but Bartsch called out: "That's enough. We've got to get on."

II

During the afternoon they hid in a barn. Bartsch said that now they were in Czech territory it would be too dangerous to move in daylight; in future they would travel only at night. They could no longer count on the probability that any civilian who saw them would keep his mouth shut. "They'll put their dogs on us and hunt us like criminals," he said. "We mustn't give them the chance." "Why did we come this way?" Konig grumbled. "Did we have to come this way?" "It's quicker," Bartsch said curtly. "Hunt us like mad dogs," the SS doctor said with a giggle in which there was an undertone of abject terror. The hay had a strong smell; the light that came in through the chinks between the wooden boards slowly faded and at last disappeared. It took Braun a long time to go to sleep. His feet ached, and he listened to the deep breathing of the others. They had removed a board from the wall, and every now and then the sentry standing by it quietly cleared his throat. The hay rustled at the slightest movement of the sleeping men. Mice scuttled across the floor; in the distance a dog barked, and one of the men muttered in his sleep. Braun dozed off, but woke again when the sentry struck a match and roused his relief. The two men exchanged a few muttered words; and the new sentry took his place at the gap in the wall, through which Braun saw a star shining. The first sentry lay down in the hay, which rustled, and went to sleep and started snoring. Braun felt calm and at peace. He knew that this would pass and that other feelings would return, the feelings that had overwhelmed him before he shot down Fink and knocked out Drescher, including his overwhelming, paralyzing fear. He had transgressed, he had taken life, and he had struck a man and knocked him out, and in doing these things had felt fierce pleasure, and infinite relief at having overcome his fear. He felt no remorse. He did not call himself to account for what he had done, and in spite of the hopelessness of his position felt strong and resolute. He told himself that by the time they got back to Germany there would be no court-martial to hand him over to, so they would carry out the death sentence on him themselves. They were being hunted like mad dogs; he himself had shot Fink like a mad dog, and not because of the Russian wounded—that had been only an excuse. But somebody had had to do it, he said to himself; for that was the only language they understood, the language of violence; and it was that to which he had had recourse. . . . But never in his life had he been more afraid than when Fink took out his pistol, not even at the bridge or when he was wounded. Never had he been more afraid than when he had told Drescher to get up. And still, he would shoot Fink again and he would hit Drescher again; both these things he had done primarily for his own sake,. . . . No, he did not think he would have to hit Drescher again. Drescher, after his anger had passed, had looked at him like a whipped dog. But, before he had hit him, he had thought it was going to be his end. Perhaps everything depended on hitting at the right moment. "Karl," said a voice from the corner. It was that of the SS doctor. "Yes?" "There was no answer. A little while later the voice repeated: "Karl?" "What is it?" The only answer was a nervous giggle and the sound of panting as if the man were struggling for breath.

"What's the matter?" said Braun, but still got no answer. Before he dropped off to sleep he thought he heard the voice from the corner saying yet again: "Karl."

At about ten o'clock they went on again, and they walked all night, through heavily wooded, hilly country. At first light they came upon a Czech peasant cutting hay. They asked him whether there were any Russians in the village not far away and, if so, how many. The man nodded vigorously, and his tanned, broad face turned pale with terror. They asked him more questions, about the Russians' movements, and their strength, and so on, but the man knew little German, and the information they gathered was meager. "He's shamming; he understands perfectly well," Konig said angrily, and began talking to the man in Czech; and it was obvious from his voice that he was bullying him. They went on talking Czech, and eventually Konig shrugged his shoulders and said: "I don't know whether he's really so stupid or whether he's putting it on, but he really doesn't seem to know very much." "Tell him to show us the way around the village," said Bartsch. The peasant was more terrified than ever. At first he refused to be their guide; but they forced him to; and he led them around the village by hidden paths; and, when they thought they were sufficiently far away from it, Bartsch shot him dead; and they covered the body with branches and leaves. "If you go on like this, you'll never reach your destination," Braun remarked. "Who knows how many of us he killed?" said Konig. "What do you think he'd have done when he got back to the village?" Bartsch asked Braun. "Do you think it was easy for me to do this?" "It's not a question of whether it's easy or not, but whether one does it at all," Braun nearly shouted in reply, and Bartsch merely stared hard at him with his bright, perplexed eyes and then said forcefully: "We've got to get to South Germany. Don't you understand? We've got to get to South Germany." In spite of the forcefulness with which he spoke there was a note of desperation and uncertainty in his voice—it was the first time since the beginning of their trek that he had betrayed the slightest doubt about whether they would reach their goal or whether the goal was indeed worth reaching. They had to cross a field and a road in full daylight. Beyond it was a wood in a broad valley, and it seemed a big one; it looked a good hiding place for the day. But while making for it they were challenged by a Czech partisan patrol. They killed three of the men, but two got away on their bicycles. During the affray Klinker was severely wounded in the lower part of the body; Braun thought he had been shot through the bladder. Bartsch looked down at the wounded man. "We can't stay here," he said, and his face was expressionless, like a mask. "Don't leave me," the wounded man said, quietly and imploringly. "We've been through practically the whole war together." Bartsch bent over him, picked up his submachine gun, took the

iron rations, ammunition and hand grenades from his pockets and haversack and the pistol from his holster. He unloaded the pistol, except for two rounds which he left in the magazine. The wounded man's eyes followed him carefully. Bartsch charged the magazine again and laid the pistol on the wounded man's chest. Then he slowly straightened up as if he had a heavy burden on his shoulders, and said: "Richard, do it before the pain gets too bad." His voice was as expressionless as his face. They went on, and for a few moments the only sound was that of their footsteps and the rustle of the wind in the trees. Then the wounded man started yelling. "Franz, come back, don't leave me, Franz!" he yelled and yelled again. They hastened their stride until they were nearly running; the yells grew fainter; and then at last they heard the sharp crack of the pistol and the echo from the hillside opposite. Bartsch stopped, and with a furious gesture smashed the dead man's submachine gun against the trunk of a tree.

III Some time later Bartsch stopped again, took his map from his pocket, examined it at length, and said: "We've got to cross a main road. There's no alternative. And, as we've got to get as far away as possible, we've got to cross it now, in broad daylight." They went on for about two hours, crossed a few forest paths, and finally reached the road. Long before they reached it they heard the roar and rumble of vehicles. When they finally lay in the undergrowth near the roadside they saw that it was utterly hopeless to try to cross now. Russian trucks were driving west in a practically continual stream, as well as horse-drawn vehicles, long columns of marching infantry and long columns of German prisoners going in the opposite direction. A Russian unit was resting by the roadside, and there were some German refugee wagons as well. They crept back as noiselessly as possible in the direction from which they had come, and then ran, bending double, and when at last they stopped, panting for breath, Bartsch said they would try again during the night. For the rest of the day they would hide in the wood; it would be better to go farther back into it and hide near a swamp they had passed previously. On their way to it they came to a clearing with a small hut, where they decided to rest and sleep. However, the hut was already occupied by five German soldiers who were also waiting for dark to try to cross the road. They were Sergeant Hanns Mommer, the leader of the party; Corporal Werner Auschinsky; and Pfcs. Gerhard Blum, Leopold Bliss, and Max Winkler. "What was that shooting some time ago?" asked the sergeant. "Was that you?" "Partisans," Bartsch replied. "Was that necessary?" said the big, massive, red-faced sergeant, looking mistrustfully at the SS men. "Do you expect us to let them shoot us down like clay pigeons?" Bartsch replied. "Did any of them get away?" asked the sergeant. 'Two." "Bunglers," said Corporal Auschinsky. "Now we'll have a whole army after us."

"Where are you trying to get to?" "Upper Bavaria." "Right through Czechoslovakia?" "All around it. It's safer." "The Alpine redoubt?" asked Braun. "No, home. What do you mean, Alpine redoubt?" "Is there such a thing?" "Ask Oberscharfuhrer Bartsch," said Braun. "Nonsense," said Auschinsky. "My wife has been evacuated to Kaufbeuren." "I think there are rather too many of us here," said Sergeant Mommer. "You mean you'd like us to move on?" said Bartsch. "Exactly," said Mommer. "Why?" said Bartsch. "We don't like your collar badges," said Auschinsky. "I rather suspected that," said Drescher. "That's very clever of you," said Mommer. "Where did you pick up those two with the Death's Heads? I always thought the Waffen SS was a decent unit," Auschinsky said. "Are there any other remarks you'd like to make?" said Bartsch. "Only that I can't stand the Death's Heads," said Auschinsky. "I've seen what they did at Warsaw, and one has heard other things about them, too. How did you manage to get mixed up with these people, doctor?" said Auschinsky. "Ask Oberscharfuhrer Bartsch," said Braun. Were these men going to be his salvation? "In your place I'd get rid of those SS badges of yours," said Blum. "We'll never get out of this wood. Our only chance is under a white flag. The only way out is to cross that road, and you've ruined what chance there was with your shooting. Now they know we're here." "There are people who can't stop shooting," said Winkler. "What do you think will happen to you if they catch you?" said Auschinsky. "Particularly now. Or don't you know the war's over? There isn't any shooting any more." "What did you say? The war's over?" "Oh, my God, they really didn't know!" Auschinsky ex-303 claimed. "It's been over since the day before yesterday. Your Alpine redoubt is out." "Perhaps we really should get rid of our badges," Konig said slowly. "Even if you do, do you really think the Russians are as stupid as that? Anyone in your uniform . . ." "Shut your mouth," Bartsch exclaimed. "I shall do nothing of the sort," said Auschinsky. "I never have, and I certainly shan't now. Don't you realize that the war's over and finished with, that the Wehrmacht no longer exists, and that everyone who was in the SS is going to be hanged?" "What did you say? Did you say the war was over?" said the SS doctor, going slowly up to Auschinsky, taking hold of his arms and putting his face close to his. His voice was high and hysterical, like that of a terrified child. "Is the war really over?" he exclaimed. "Is it really over?"

"Yes," said Winkler. "Unconditional surrender. There is no Alpine redoubt, and the werewolf is dead. We're going home." The SS doctor burst into a shrill, hysterical laugh, and Auschinsky tried to shake him off. The despair and terror in the laugh reduced the others to silence. He could not stop laughing, not even when Benz, who was on guard outside, called out that he had seen something move among the trees; and even after Bartsch struck him on the mouth and the first shot was fired outside, he went on giggling crazily. "Now we're in for it," the sergeant called out, and dashed out with the others behind him. Soon afterward the sporadic firing outside rose to a wild fusillade, which soon died away, however. The assailants had withdrawn. The sergeant was dead, with a bullet in his head. The others withdrew toward the swamp, and Drescher dragged the sergeant's body after him. In the undergrowth at the edge of a clearing he asked the others to stop, and began undoing the sergeant's tunic. "What are you doing?" Bartsch asked impatiently. Drescher looked up at him with a threatening grin on his face, showing his teeth like a wild beast ready to defend its prey. But then he dropped his head and said: "Now I've got my uniform." Bartsch was about to burst out, but controlled himself, . and wiped his sweating face with the back of his hand; it was a gesture of utter hopelessness. They waited while Drescher finished changing into the sergeant's uniform, and Bartsch ordered the body covered with twigs and foliage. Drescher's new uniform was too big for him, but he was delighted with it. "Now I've got myself the Iron Cross, Class I," he said, and purred with satisfaction. "That's one way of doing it, isn't it?" He rolled up his own uniform and put it under his arm; he said he would bury it somewhere in the swamp; and when they went on he was unusually talkative. He said it would be best to hide it as far away as possible. Otherwise suspicion would be aroused when a half-naked body was found with a Death's Head brigade uniform beside it. You only had to use your brains to keep out of trouble, he added; and he would have gone on talking if Bartsch had not told him abruptly to keep his mouth shut. They advanced slowly and cautiously through the thick wood, with their weapons at the ready. Bartsch called Auschinsky and told him that he and his men could go their own way if they liked. But Auschinsky said it would be better to stick together for the moment and try to cross the road together during the night. They were only a couple of hours away from it, and the more of them there were the easier it would be to fight off another partisan attack, if there was one. There was nothing else for it; at this point the partisans would not make any distinction between Wehrmacht and SS. During the evening they had another brief skirmish with partisans—though it might have been a Russian patrol—it was impossible to say for certain in the twilight. Afterward Corporal Auschinsky put into words what every member of the party was privately fearing. He said that no doubt they were surrounded, that next day, or even perhaps that night, there would be a systematic hunt for them, and that now it was going to be extremely difficult to get away. "I'm going to risk it," he said. "If there's anyone who wants to give himself up, there's nothing to stop him. Tie a bit of shirt on a stick and try to make your way to the troops on the road. They'll

smuggle you through with them, and then good-by, off with you to Siberia, but at least you'll stay alive." "That's not so sure, either," said Konig. "What is sure?" said Auschinsky. "How can you expect to lose a war and then be sure?" "It wasn't my fault; I had no choice," said Konig. "I was drafted into the Waffen SS." "That's what they'll all say. That's what you'll say too, won't you, Death's Head?" "Of course," said Drescher, and laughed. When it got dark, they stopped in a clearing surrounded by thick, prickly undergrowth. Drescher waded into the swamp and buried his uniform; and when he came back he said with satisfaction that now he had covered his tracks and nobody would ever know he had been a member of the Death's Head brigade. "What about the blood-group mark under your arm?" Auschinsky asked; but Drescher said that wasn't so serious, everything depended, in his experience, on the first few moments after you were picked up. And in any case there were ways and means of getting rid of the tattoo marks. "But supposing I tell them?" the SS doctor said with a leer. "That you won't do," said Drescher menacingly. "Nobody's going to tell anybody anything," said Auschinsky. "That's your own business. But it doesn't alter the fact that you're a revolting swine. I thought people like you were going to follow the Fuhrer to his death. But the first thing you do is change your skin. Follow the Fuhrer's orders to the end—but did he order you to carry out this masquerade?" "That's none of your business," said Drescher. "I bet that within a week you'll be a Communist. Or are you one already?" "Mind your own damned business," Drescher said furiously. "We've got to see how we can get out of this." "And you've got very good reason to," the SS doctor said almost inaudibly; and after a while he added, still more quietly: "And so have I." They decided to attempt their breakthrough at about eleven o'clock. Then they waited.

The ground was cool and damp; when you pressed it, cold water rose under your fingers. Braun sat on a thick cushion of twigs and reeds, leaning against a tree; he was very cold and his hands were buried deep in the sleeves of his tunic. Every now and then he dozed off, but only for a moment or two, and then he was wide awake again, listening to the whispers of the night. A slight breeze was blowing through the trees; and the noises from the road were distant and only just audible, but quite distinct. Suddenly it was very clear: I will get away; they are all busy with themselves; the night is dark. He dozed off again for a short time. He started when somebody called his name, and it took him some time to collect himself and realize where he was and what was happening. "Karl!" A dark form was kneeling in front of him, and over it was the face of the SS doctor. "What's the matter?" "I'm sorry," said the SS doctor.

"What about?" "About all this." The man sat down. "I'm sorry that you're here and that we brought you with us. Otherwise everything would be over for you by now." "Perhaps it would," said Braun. "Quite likely." "We'll never get through," said the SS doctor. "They're all around us, and there are more and more of them all the time. I keep on thinking I can hear them creeping up on us; and when we try to get away they'll get us, and . . ." "Not necessarily," said Braun. "Oh, yes, they will. Can't you hear them?" "No." "I can." He giggled. "That was good, what you did." "What?" "When you knocked down Drescher." He added quite softly, as if he were communicating some secret: "That was something he didn't expect. He still thinks—he deserved it." "Why?" "I tell you we'll never get through, with our uniform or without it." He spoke loudly, and Corporal Auschinsky's voice said: "Keep quiet, you fool! Can't you keep your mouth shut?" "No!" the SS doctor whispered hoarsely. "It's as certain as . . . They'll get us, and then we shall be interrogated, and . . ." "What will they ask us?" "They'll hang us. Have you ever seen . . . What do you think of me, as a doctor I mean?" "How should I know? I've never seen you work." The man began to giggle again. He giggled in the same quiet, nervous, terrified, crazy way as he had during the afternoon in the hut. "I was quite a good doctor, though I never practiced," he went on. "I was always fascinated by science. Didn't I ever tell you that?" "When?" "When we were students." "I can't remember." "I worked hard and learned a great deal," the SS doctor whispered;- and the words came pouring out. He spoke as if he had a great many important things to say and very little time to say them. "We carried out experiments," he said. "Everything was done on strictly scientific lines, of course; and we had the support of the government; and we were given everything we needed. The Reichsfuhrer himself took a personal interest in our work, Himmler, I mean. He came to our camp once, and we had to show him everything. They put pressure on us not to be so theoretical, not to go on bothering with guinea pigs and rats and so on. Guinea pigs and dogs and rats were not human, they said, and their reflexes and reactions and everything were quite different, though the rat's brain is almost human. . . . And my chief was devoted to animals; he had a whole cage full of dogs, as well as several cats and canaries and a turtle; and he had an aquarium and fed the fish every day himself, and gave every one of them a name—one was called Tarzan and another Goldilocks, and so on. Listen, they said to us, animals are not human beings; why not use human beings; we've got enough of them. Volunteers they said they were; and I, fool that I was, really believed they were volunteers at first, until I found out that they were prisoners, Jews and so on, all nationalities. But by that time we were too deeply involved to

stop, and what could I do? Could I say I wouldn't go on? Then they'd have put me inside, wouldn't they? Afterward I found out that the chief himself applied for permission to experiment with human beings instead of animals, and then the order came down to us." Silence. "Well?" Braun asked eventually. "We carried out experiments with cold on behalf of the Luftwaffe, for instance. When a pilot was shot down over the North Sea, he lived for only a few minutes in the icy water; and if he was fished out and warmed up, he died just the same; and we found out that in those cases a human being must not be warmed up slowly, but very quickly; and then we tried using human warmth; and it worked very well. 'Animal warmth' it was called." He laughed. "I remember once reading a letter from the highest quarters. It said: 'I am following your experiments with animal warmth with interest, and look forward to receiving more reports as soon as possible.' We put men in ice-cold water and left them till they lost consciousness, and then we fished them out and put them into bed between two women. Generally we used gypsy women, and we gave them plenty to eat beforehand, to fatten them up a bit, so that they shouldn't be all skin and bones like the others; and, though the men's body temperature had sometimes been reduced to 82 degrees, they quickly began coming round and having their fun with the gypsy women while they were still only half-conscious. It was amazing. We observed their reactions carefully. 'Now you see why the Jews were able to survive for two thousand years,' said the chief. 'It's incredible. Jews and gypsies, half dead, but you should see them!' Eventually he suggested that one or two gypsy women should be taken on board every ship to provide for all eventualities; and he said that other women could be used too, if necessary; and, if the idea of sleeping with gypsies was repugnant to German airmen and seamen, volunteers might be obtained from the League of German Girls; and his view was that there would be many volunteers for the noble task of saving the lives of half-frozen airmen and seamen. I read his letter. When we discussed it afterward he added: 'And have their little bit of fun at the same time. What more could they want?' But he did not put that in writing, of course. Then I was promoted, and we did experiments with jaundice; you know what a pest that was; and finally I was given a section to carry out tuberculosis experiments. I had one or two successes, not a great deal, of course; there was no time; things were beginning to crack up. We found out that children were most suitable; they were like clay which could be molded any way you liked, and so I asked for more. They were mostly Jewish children, aged between four and seven; there were fourteen altogether. Three of them died on me; and then the Russians came; and we took the children to another camp, and then another; and that was more or less the end, because no more orders or instructions came from above; and I was at my wit's end to know what to do with the children, because by this time only seven were left; and, if the Russians came and found out that we had been performing experiments on them, then heaven have mercy on us. But I had nothing left, no injections and no gas or anything, and so I hanged them in the cellar of the sick bay, where there was a beam from which condemned persons were hanged—one of my jobs, as it happened, was to certify their deaths. So I hanged the children from the beam; but they wouldn't die; they were too light; and then Drescher came down; we had known each other for a long time; I had been with him in the first camp, he was known as Slipknot Ludwig, because he always carried a rope with a slipknot about with him; and, when a prisoner collapsed, he'd put the slipknot round his neck and pull it slowly tighter and tighter till he died. I've no idea how many he did that to; and sometimes he made others do it; he was a com-

plete sadist, sometimes he'd made the prisoner's own leaders do it. Well, he came down to the cellar, and said: 'Hurry up, doctor, it's time we were off.' When he saw that the children wouldn't die he grabbed them by the feet and hung on to them to hurry things up; and I did the same, because we were in a terrible hurry; and then we took down the bodies and put them with the rest; but there was no time to burn them; everything was in a state of complete chaos; and the Russians were already firing at the camp; and Erni is having a child by me, she wrote and told me so, Erni is having a child, Erni is having a child, ifs my child, and . . ." "That's enough," Braun said. "For heaven's sake, that's enough." "Yes," said the SS doctor. "That's enough." A tall shadow was standing next to them, and Auschinsky's voice said: "I heard everything." They had not heard him approach. A second form appeared at his side, that of Blum, who was followed by Winkler and Bliss. "Stand up, you swine," said the corporal. The SS doctor rose slowly to his feet. "We're going to get through," said the corporal, "and I shall make it my business to see that you hang just like those children did, you can bet your life on that. And, if we don't get through and they catch us, I shall tell them; and if I die, the others will tell them; but you'll hang, you and he." "No!" the doctor shouted, and he yelled that he had had no choice, and then he backed into the undergrowth, and then turned and tried to run, but a burst came from a submachine gun and he collapsed and died, and Drescher's voice said: "Now he won't be able to tell anybody else that nonsense." Corporal Auschinsky turned and went back to his place, pretended to sit down, but quickly raised his weapon and charged the magazine, but he was too slow. Drescher fired again; Auschinsky collapsed, struggled and yelled for a few moments, and then died; and Drescher's voice said: "Is there anyone else here who wants to hang me?" Then he added: "Now there's a change of uniform for someone else." The quiet that followed the whip and whine of the bullets and Drescher's menacing words lay heavy over the clearing; it was the quiet of the bottom of a deep well. The wind had dropped, the forest had ceased its murmurings, and no sound came from the road. Death and darkness. The sky was gloomy and heavy; it lay like a black winding sheet over the two dead bodies; and finally Braun's voice said, cold and quiet: "Put that gun down, Drescher." "Oh, so you're still here, are you?" "That'll do, Drescher, don't do anything stupid," said Konig's voice; and his dark shadow emerged from the trees into the clearing. He bent over the dead corporal and started undoing his tunic, but did not have time to finish. The forest suddenly awoke to ghostly, noisy life. Voices shouted, lights flashed, running forms appeared, heavy footsteps approached from all directions, orders were shouted, there was the crack and whip of a machine-gun burst. They jumped to their feet and ran in different directions, every man for himself; and soon afterward there was a wild fusillade and, shouting and yelling; and the firing went on sporadically until finally, late at night, it ceased.

Braun lay in a hollow under a fallen tree. Footsteps had passed him, lights had glided along the tree trunk, making the soft, decaying wood stand out of the darkness, and had then passed on. Tree trunks, shadows, shaking foliage, twigs crackling underfoot. The searchers had exchanged rapid words and gone on with the hunt. Silence, then voices again; and then they moved away. Others took their place and disappeared in turn, and then silence fell again. He lay there for many hours, motionless. He smelled the sharp smell of the damp forest floor. The forest at home was full of the same damp leaves; there was the same breeze through the treetops. Once he had spent a whole night under a tree without putting up his tent. Next morning, the sun had glinted through the foliage. Tomorrow would be a fine day, he could smell it already. With Elfie in the forest. The leaf in his mouth tasted good. No, it didn't. With mother in the forest. Father loved the forest; he said that the forest was what the people who lived in it or went through it made of it; there was never any need to be afraid of the forest. Here's another uniform; someone else can change into it. A little boy sucking his thumb at the side of the road, wearing a cap much too big for him, watching the tanks go by with big, astonished eyes. Here's a bit of bread, little Russian. The woman with the dead child in her arms; go to sleep, my baby. He hung on to the children's legs. And if I get a child? Elfie asked. Don't worry, my dear, we'll get married tomorrow or the next day, certificate of Aryan birth. He lay there waiting, without knowing quite what for. He thought, and yet had no thoughts; he saw, and yet all he could see was blackness. He listened for footsteps, and was afraid, and yet was not afraid. He was not afraid of the voices and the footsteps and the lights, and he desperately hoped that they would pass by without finding him; he was himself, and yet he was not. The past and the present and the future and yet none of these things were in his mind; this was the beginning, the very first hour, and he told himself that he was alive, and he could not believe it. Human forms, the dead, faces, shadows, were about him, in him, the voices of the dying and the suffering. We are on one shore, perpetually fighting those on the other shore, but the enemy is elsewhere. And I myself am on both shores; I am all of them, the general and Elfie and her father; I see them all. And he saw them and did not see them, and he thought and he did not think. I am everything; I am the war, and the child that was inoculated with t.b.; I am the doctor who inoculated the child and hanged it; I am all these things; I have killed; I am Fink and I am Fink's killer; and I am the wounded man he shot; and I still shoot the wounded and help them, I do not want to, but I still do it, I do it because . . . It is in me, he said to himself. There is no other shore. It is in me. His thoughts were so clear and sharp that it almost seemed as if he could touch them; and then they grew confused again, but he did not regret them. He said to himself: I know. He rose and walked off through the forest; he was very much alone, and he said to himself: I am going to her, to Elfie, I shall find Elfie. He knew that he would find her, the knowledge was in him and all around him, and all those around him thought so too and said so. When he came to a clearing he went without hesitating to the middle of it, picked out the Great Bear, found the North Star, and changed direction, keeping the star on his right; and when he plunged into the wood again he tried to keep the same direction.