Unlikely Warrior (16 page)

On April 3, we climbed up a small hill. Below lay the river Dniester, that goal we had been longing and striving for. It shone, a silver ribbon in the afternoon sun, running through the white winter landscape—a beautiful sight.

Enormous numbers of German vehicles and soldiers were assembled directly below us on the plain. The few available boats were occupied with ferrying some of them across the river.

Considering our appearance, it wasn’t surprising that the Germans shot at us until we were able to make ourselves known. Once past our own defense lines, we barely had time to eat a bite before we heard the deep hum of heavy diesel engines—the Russian tanks. They weren’t even visible yet, and not a shot had been fired, but everyone took off toward the river without even waiting for a command.

The water was about two kilometers away, and everyone ran, taking only rifles and leaving everything else behind. I still hauled the wireless on my back; Konrad carried the other box, and we ran as well as we could with this burden.

The tanks rolled up behind us, at least thirty of them, painted white and gleaming in the sun. Immediately they began firing into the fleeing masses with everything they had.

“Hopeless,” I said. “Nobody’s going to make it across that river.”

“We swim through,” Konrad said.

“Through that icy water? Good luck.”

I stopped, took the wireless off my back, removed a hand grenade from my belt, and was making ready to blow up the box when an open Volkswagen pulled up next to us. One of the three officers inside yelled, “You two with the set. Get inside fast!”

I grabbed the wireless; we jumped in and took off, driving wildly through the midst of all the fleeing soldiers and vehicles and the panic-stricken horses and cows that were running desperately in all directions.

Shells hit all around us, but by zigging and zagging around bomb craters and war matériel, we managed to draw closer to the river.

The sun was setting as we arrived at the bank. I asked myself why it happened to be us they had picked up, and what was the use anyway. There were no longer any boats to be seen, only despairing soldiers trying to decide whether to throw themselves into the freezing waters or wait to be finished off by the approaching tanks.

I was on the point of jumping out of the car when the officer at the wheel shouted, “Hold on!” The car rolled down a gentle slope to the river and right into the water. For a few seconds the current pulled us downriver, the car bobbing like a little boat. Suddenly a small propeller in the rear began to hum and, as if by magic, we chugged through house-high water fountains made by the shrapnel exploding around us and landed on the opposite side.

The car continued up the far bank and into the frozen fields and then finally stopped. Still without completely comprehending what had happened, I was waved over by one of the officers.

“Get into this crater. Send this message and wait for the answer,” he said, handing me a piece of paper. It was a request for new orders and position from division headquarters.

Some time later I remembered that back in Vienna I had once inspected an amphibian auto exactly like the one that had just transported us across the river; I hadn’t dreamed that such a vehicle would one day play a vital role in my life.

Very few others made it over the river. The majority remained behind.

April 10, 1944

My dear Mutti,

On the third of this month, we made a dramatic crossing of the Dniester, and after one day of rest we were back on the lines. Since then a major battle—tough, ruthless—has been raging for every meter. Each time we retreat, a counterattack follows shortly thereafter. And so it continues, back and forth.

The units are dissolving rapidly. Our division dwindled into a battle group and when that, in turn, became too small to be effective we were attached to another division. And so it continues. I almost never know the name of my commanding officer, since I belong to a different unit every few days.

Many are falling and wounded. The procession of wounded no longer has an end. I see more and more of those little hills with the crosses. The last little bit of humor is also disappearing, because blood is everywhere and everything is in shreds. All are becoming more nervous by the day. Add to that the weather, which is warmer now but melting all the snow and turning the whole country into puree again.

Thus we stand in the mud, day and night, everything wet and dirty. I have twelve boils on my leg, with no bandage because the medics need all the bandages for the wounded. My feet are lumps of mud, and everything—underwear, pants, and stockings—is equally slippery. My boots aren’t watertight either.

Yesterday it got to be too much for me, so I went back to the village to the doctor, who treated me and prescribed three days’ rest at the supply lines. Since telegraphists are lacking, they exchanged me with the regiment telegraphist. I had barely finished washing up when the Russians took the village. We had to get out in a hurry, so I spent Easter Sunday without a bite to eat, out in the open on a kilometer marker in the middle of the morass. Thank God the sun was shining a little.

In the evening the village came back into our hands by way of a counterattack, and since then it has been quiet. The stove is drying my clothes, and a chicken with potatoes is filling my stomach. What’s more, after a lice hunt (300–400) I slept like a baby the entire night.

Today is Easter Monday. The sun is shining gloriously, and everything looks a bit better again. A mail stoppage is in effect. I haven’t received any more mail from you since March 18. I’m curious how I’ll get rid of this letter. Don’t worry. I’ll get through somehow. Kisses,

Your Boy

INTO ROMANIA

With the crossing of the river Dniester, we took leave of Russia and entered Romanian territory. Communication became difficult once again, because the Romanians understood neither our German nor our newly acquired Russian.

We weren’t permitted to steal any more chickens, because Romania was a friendly country, one whose divisions were fighting on the side of the Germans. We were expected, therefore, to pay for everything in lei, the Romanian currency.

Spring had finally arrived. The soft hills of the Romanian landscape were covered with a multitude of flowers. Grass began sprouting, and the fruit trees were ready to bloom. Everywhere things were beginning to stir, and an endless cackling covered the whole region. Thousands of little chicks, kittens, puppies, piglets, and baby goats were hopping around. It was amazing and reassuring to see how everything had multiplied in spite of the ongoing destruction all over the land.

I enjoyed the luxury of a reasonably clean house on the edge of a middle-sized village, several kilometers behind the front. The sun shone constantly, and the never-ending rumbling of the cannons in the distance didn’t concern me now, because the fighting had shifted to the north. I had ten hours of undisturbed sleep every night and spent many hours a day on a blanket in the sun, where the numerous pus-filled sores on my legs finally began to heal.

Everything in this new place was so soothing: the awareness that winter was over, the assurance that we were beyond Russian shooting distance, the abundance of food, milk, and wine, a friendly woman in the house, and a pretty seventeen-year-old girl who seemed to smile at me in a particular way.

Sergeant Konrad, the last of the staff from the second battalion, and I shared a house while waiting to be united with the replacements and leftovers from other units into a new battle group. As far as we were concerned, the longer they took to put it together the better!

This new country was considerably different from the Ukraine. The Romanian people seemed to prefer everything a few degrees neater and cleaner. The walls of the houses were often whitewashed, and sometimes the front gardens even boasted flower beds. The generally higher standard of living enjoyed by the Romanians was obvious in many ways and especially exhibited by the five or six large wine barrels to be found in almost every cellar.

Not surprisingly under the circumstances, the old men of the village were drunk most of the time. When the rumbling sound of the artillery came a little closer, they quickly found their way into the cellars to get even more inebriated. Afterward they staggered around, yelling and laughing, sometimes making life rather difficult for us by becoming too interested in our weapons or equipment.

My duties were minimal. I had the wireless set up under a big walnut tree in the yard, on standby for unexpected circumstances. The other soldiers lived in a house across the street and spent most of their time drinking and playing cards. I enjoyed being by myself or playing a game of chess with Konrad. I spent most of the time daydreaming, perhaps in an unconscious attempt to get my brain, body, and nerves back into some semblance of normality after the events of the past winter.

One day we were taken to a sauna, where we handed in the remainder of our outfits, mostly in shreds, and were given used but clean uniforms, without a louse in them. It was a tremendous feeling for the few days that it lasted. During my hours of sunbathing I managed to divest myself completely of military clothing, wearing only a pair of bathing trunks sewn from a stolen white curtain.

From dead soldiers at a nearby field hospital, I obtained the few things one needs: pencil, paper, shaving soap, towel, and wash kit. I still had the pair of silk stockings I had found at the Pervomaysk airport. There was probably nothing more useless I could have carried around. Once in a while I took the little package from my pocket, unwrapped it carefully, and pressed it to my nose, savoring the odor of a forgotten world.

The official rations were sparse: watery soup once a day and bread, butter, and sausage every three days. Whatever else we wanted we had to find ourselves, even if it was not officially permitted. I consumed an average of ten eggs a day: two soft-boiled for breakfast, a five-egg omelet around midday, and the rest stirred into milk or hot red wine. A chicken per day stewed or fried and some of the hard, dry bread of the region kept my belly full. When the girl, Ana, wearing a dress much too pretty for a weekday, came bringing fresh flowers to the table and smiling that special smile, I noticed some long-dormant desires beginning to awake.

One day some mail from home arrived, including pudding powder and raisins that were very quickly transformed into a thing of beauty, a bright yellow vanilla pudding, cooked in an old steel helmet and turned out on a board ready to be eaten. Soon it was only a lovely memory, but something else arrived in the same parcel that was to have an unexpected effect. It was a brand-new Hohner C-major mouth organ. I had been without a harmonica for quite some time, having left my last one behind in some hasty retreat.

The sun was already setting when I picked up my new harmonica, walked out through the little vegetable garden into the field, and climbed up on a haystack. There I lay, playing a sonata, looking up into the sky and feeling as though I might be able to make it after all, protected by an entire family of guardian angels.

It wasn’t too long before the girl Ana came creeping up to sit next to me. We had communicated before in a sort of Romanian that seemed to come easily to me, thanks to the little bit of Russian I had picked up, my school French, and my native German. On that particular evening we didn’t speak. I played the harmonica, she listened. Later we watched the moon come up from the haystack. As so many times before in my young life, the harmonica had proved itself to be a truly good friend.

For a few days, I enjoyed a very intense romance with this dark-haired girl who had such a happy laugh. She seemed to think it would go on forever, but the end came fast. One day while she was in the fields, we received the order to pull out, and thirty minutes later we were on the march to another village some twenty kilometers away. There had been an outbreak of typhoid in Ana’s village, something the German army could not curb; better to leave than let it take its toll on the already heavily reduced troops.

May 3, 1944

My dear Mutti,

During some moments one really becomes aware that a war’s on. When the bombs are bursting the loudest, one thinks the least about it. I want to describe a wartime scene for you now.

I am sitting in the chimney corner with a giant boil on my buttocks and writing. A construction of brooms and blankets underneath is intended to help me avoid sitting directly on the boil. The scene of the action is a little house in a small village on a side arm of the Dniester. Time, 4 p.m. Outside it is raining, springlike. Practically the entire detachment has gathered here in the kitchen, because of the warming stove. Here one can also light a cigarette, because no one owns a lighter or matches anymore.

A large barrel of wine stands in the entrance hall. In front of a window two men are standing close together. One is eating some bread with a few Portuguese sardines and drinking wine. The other is crushing a louse on top of a politician’s face in a German newspaper and whistling the song “I Dance with You into Heaven.”

Two meters away another is whistling just as loudly, and off-key, the “Volga Boat Song,” with brief interruptions each time he tosses a sunflower seed into his mouth. A photo of a girl is leaning against the wall in front of him, and he begins to swear because he is here and not at home. The Russians have shot off one of his ears.