Private Otto Kettner slowly opened his eyes. He stirred in his bunk, shivered, and spat; there seemed to be a bitter taste in his mouth. Along the dank passage, which held other bunks and makeshift beds, the mutter of voices sounded like a prolonged growling. Many of the men were coughing with dismal hacking sounds. He pushed back the foul blankets under which he had huddled and put his feet to the floor. Ugh! The place was beastly cold. The stove ten paces from him was red on its sides, yet the icy cold dominated.
He went to the light of a small Hindenburg lamp and looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. It was his turn, too, as senior private, to go to company headquarters and get the rations for the day. Also the mail, if any. The hope of a letter aroused him. Then, too, there had been a rumour that they were to be relieved and taken back to a town in the rear.
No one spoke to him as he bundled himself preparatory to leaving the tunnel-like space which had been some sort of storehouse before the Russians had fitted bunks into it and established a stove. They had been lucky to find such a billet, Otto knew, and it had been a simple matter to oust the peasants who were occupying it.
Otto pushed the door open and closed it quickly on its screeching hinges. He gasped as he met the sharp air that swept the open, and then hurried through a path in the snow to a cottage that looked sunken in the frozen landscape. He pushed into the porch and opened the door quickly, to confront a hungry-looking fellow with a long cold nose.
“Are the rations in?” He asked the question before the sentry could complain about his abrupt entrance.
The fellow flicked a drop from his nose and shook his head. “We will have to eat the same rotten bread and carrot jam. There is no mail, of course.”
Otto shrugged. “This could be yesterday or the day before. Why are you so cheerful?” It was a joke he had used often. “You have a soft job here, and the best Russian coat in our company. What more could you wish?”
The other resumed his hunched apathy. “Perhaps you will be cheerful,” he said, “when you hear the message from our officer.”
“Come along,” a voice said roughly. “Why chatter with that dolt?”
It was Demming, the platoon sergeant, who spoke. He sat in an inner room attending to the stoking of a stove with a broken top. “There are the rations for your men,”—he pointed to bundles on the table—“and be thankful they are not less. It is a miracle that we have food at all.”
“Of course.” Otto said it mechanically. “Is there any word of relief?”
“The word is,” snapped Demming, “that we are to remain here another week. The fools think there are some of those cursed Russians roaming about this area. They do not seem to realize that we are forty kilometres from the reserve lines and that not a dozen buildings remain standing in that distance.”
“There are the paratroops,” Otto shrugged.
“So! We have heard that song for months. Where would they be? Are they invisible?”
Demming snorted and kicked the stove. He had become very irritable.
“There is the forest?” Otto said it mildly.
“The forest! A wilderness in which not even a wolf could survive.” He paused and looked at Otto, then put more mockery in his tone. “Do you wish to earn a leave to your home town? Search the snow banks until you find a Russian soldier and you will be permitted to go at once. Our new officer promised it. Also there will be an Iron Cross. Imagine!” The sergeant rubbed his chest violently as if the heat of the stove had roused body vermin. “It was hard not to laugh in his silly face when he gave me such word last night. Russian soldiers! Does he think we are magicians?”
“Did you ask him about a coat for me?” Otto tried to keep the whine out of his voice. “This one I am wearing is thin as paper. Did you tell him?”
“Of course not,” shouted Demming. “Look after yourself and salvage a coat. That’s all anyone can tell you. Go.”
Otto gathered up the rations. Demming was always like that, getting to screaming when you asked him to do something. The sentry was moaning softly to himself like an old dog in misery and Otto went past without looking at the fellow. The outside air made him flinch. It was a cold that penetrated, that brought an agony above the eyes.
As he arrived at the platoon billet some of the men on the floor cursed savagely at the inrush of cold. The rest lay and shivered, huddled against each other for warmth.
“The orders?” a voice in the gloom croaked.
“The usual,” Otto said dully. “No fresh rations. No mail. We are to stay another week.”
He put a kettle on the stove and when the water boiled they made barley coffee. It seemed more bitter than usual but he drank three mug-fulls in an attempt to get rid of his chills.
Someone blundered against the outside door, and Otto opened it. The sergeant stood there, beckoning.
“Come with me,” he said swiftly, and Otto closed the door behind him and obeyed.
“There is no need to spoil the morning of those shirkers in there,” the sergeant went on. “You and I can do what is to be done, and forget it.”
“What is it?” Otto asked. “I have not eaten yet.”
“It’s that sentry we had. He went to the latrine as you left. I heard a sound and went out. He had shot himself.”
“Shot himself? Why?”
“That is a simple question to ask. How do I know? It is probable that he has done too much thinking, and it is not good to think in this place.”
“Now,” said Otto, recovering from his bewilderment, “I can have a warm coat.”
“Not so quickly,” snapped Demming. “The officer has ordered that such matters must be settled by a drawing.”
“But I have not—”
“Stop it,” grated Demming. “There will be a drawing. Say no more.”
They carried the body to a drift in the open. The sergeant had a spade and with it he cut the snow crust. “You may have his ration for the day,” he said.
Otto helped with the rough burial although he was almost stiff with cold. He carried the Russian coat as they went back to the platoon billet, and felt in the pockets. They held nothing of value. There was but a sheet of paper with two words pencilled at the top: “Dear Mother.”
Had the poor fellow been interrupted as he began to write or had words failed him? What was there to say? Otto stared at the inky lettering, then shredded the paper into small pieces.
The men in the billet stared at the coat Otto carried and the sergeant told them, tersely, of the suicide. “Now bring me bits of paper,” he finished. “We are going to draw for the coat.”
A slip of paper with a number marked on it was given to each man, and the corresponding pieces were placed in a cap by the sergeant. He shook them well, then ordered Otto to take one from the cap and announce the number.
Otto nervously made the drawing, and called a number. It was held by Private Suhren, a youngster with a too-ready tongue. He took the coat gleefully.
“But,” Otto protested, “he already has the best coat in the platoon!”
“Then beg it from him,” said the sergeant roughly. “You had your chance,” he went on in a lower tone. “Fool! Why did you not call out your own number?”
Otto waited until everyone had eaten and the men were quiet again before he went to Suhren. “I have ten marks,” he said. “I will give you them for the coat.”
“Keep your money,” sneered Suhren. “I will not sell.”
“Then,” said Otto desperately. “I will give you five marks for your old one.”
“Too late,” grimaced Suhren. “I have already given it to another man.”
Some of the men were wrapping blankets about themselves to go outside and all were cursing the cold when the door was thrown open and the sergeant shouted “Attention!”
The officer had come to inspect them and they stood, woodenly, where they had arisen, waiting. “No one would know we are at war,” the officer had come lately from Berlin to stiffen the morale of the company, “if he were to see such a rabble as this. Who is the senior here?”
Otto saluted. “I am, Herr Lieutenant.”
“So, and what are your duties?”
“We are to watch for enemy planes during daylight, to keep an eye for any civilians who may move about, and to collect fuel for the fires.”
“It is daylight now,” rasped the officer. “Who is watching for planes?”
There was an exit at the opposite end of the building and Otto had seen one of the older men scurry outside as the sergeant fumbled with the door latch.
“Private Gresser, sir.”
The sergeant looked relieved. “Show me,” said the officer.
They went outside and Otto led the way to a square space they had cut in a drift so as to get shelter from the wind. A soldier stood there, gazing at the sky. He was ragged and dirty but he was clearly on duty.
“Do you have,” snarled the officer, “but one man to watch for both planes and peasants?”
“It is very cold,” Otto said mildly, “and it is but a few steps into the billet to report anything.”
“There are only seven peasants in all the area,” added the sergeant, “and they are old ones.”
“Bah!” snorted the officer. “You are all becoming better at making excuses than anything else.” He glared at Otto. “You are too much by the stove,” he went on. “Take a man with you and make a scouting trip. See if you can locate any of the enemy. Get ready and go at once.”
As Otto turned to obey he pointed to his thin greatcoat but the Sergeant’s face was as stone and not a word was said.
Otto thought of Private Suhren with the warm coat, and ordered him to make ready for the patrol. Rage set Otto’s breathing faster. Such beastly unfairness. The officer would hustle back to his cosy billet and stay there, and the sergeant would sit by his stove.
Otto shook himself and coughed as they climbed a snow bank. The walking was heavy so that the first efforts caused a small pain in his chest and he coughed again and again.
There was not a sound in the landscape. The few ragged silhouettes of destroyed buildings seemed one with the billets of their company. To their left the forest stretched like a great dark barrier and as they veered toward it to rest their eyes against the glare of the snow Otto noticed several gaps in the blurred mass of evergreens. They were small glades, he knew, offering shelter from the biting little gusts of icy air, and he led directly toward them.
He had another fit of coughing as he hurried and resented instantly Suhren’s suggestion that they ought not to tramp so fast.
“What’s wrong with you,” he demanded, “that you want to go slower? Don’t tell me that you are cold.”
“I wasn’t thinking about myself,” said Suhren easily. “I can follow without trouble. But you are much older than the rest of us and you don’t look well.”
“I am well enough,” Otto said shortly. “We will get among those trees and be away from the wind at least.”
“It is quite a distance!” Suhren was startled. “I thought we would not be away more than an hour?”
“Fool!” scoffed Otto. “The officer expects us to patrol this entire area. It will be easier to rest among the trees than to keep tramping.”
Suhren was short and stout and the Russian coat made him appear as broad as he was tall. He shook his head as Otto had another fit of coughing. “You should report to the doctor the next time he comes to the company.”
“Fat good that would do,” panted Otto, “and if you are so concerned you can let me have that coat in exchange.”
Suhren made no answer and they trudged on until they had passed under the first trees, then he paused.
“Have you a compass?” he asked.
“For what?” queried Otto impatiently. “Are not our tracks enough marking to guide us back?”
“To be sure,” grunted Suhren. “I had not thought of them. I would not want to lose my way here.”
Otto’s hatred of their futile errand increased as he plodded through the loose snow but he kept on and did not halt until they had reached a small ravine. There he stopped by a pine windfall and began breaking its brittle branches.
“We can build a fire here,” he said, “and the smoke will not rise enough to be seen back at our billets. See, I have brought my pan so that we can make some of that miserable coffee.”
They built a fire and huddled beside it on seats of brush. The blaze seemed fierce but after an hour it was not enough to banish the chill from Otto. His breath formed icy particles on the collar of his greatcoat. Cold stole up his body from the snow. Cold stabbed down at him from overhead. He knew that he had not eaten sufficient food in more than a month and that he was not a well man.
The nagging cold was too much for him. He piled on brush extravagantly until the flames leaped high but warmth still eluded him. “One side may roast,” he cried, “but the other side of me is freezing. Put in the coffee. The water is boiling now.”
Suhren dumped in the coffee and stirred the mixture. Then he stared upward.
“Look!” he said in alarm. “Snowflakes! A storm is coming. Let us get from here. We do not want our tracks to be covered.”
Otto gulped the coffee. The drink ran through him like fire. It raced through his veins in a scorching flood and he welcomed the stabbing pain. But a moment later he was shivering.
“No,” he refused, “we will stay here for a time. It will take plenty of snow to cover our tracks and there is no hurry.”
“You forget,” argued Suhren, “that it is not only the snow that falls that covers the tracks, but the loose snow will drift. Listen, and you will hear there is quite a wind. We are rested now. Let’s go.”
“I am in charge,” rebuked Otto. “We are going to stay for an hour more at least. Make a second fire so that we can stand between them. I want to get thoroughly warmed.”
“Don’t be a mule,” said Suhren harshly. “You know that you cannot get warmed outdoors. See, the flakes are beginning to come quite fast.”
“You are like a boy.” Otto was angry. He did not want to tell Suhren that he was tired but his weariness was so great that he intended to rest for a long time. He tried to make an excuse for delay but his attempts to think clearly resulted merely in a more complete fuddling of his mental processes.
“It will be hours before our trail will be covered,” he muttered. “Get some more wood and pile it on.”
“There isn’t much more that I can break with my hands,” Suhren said impatiently, “and I cannot move the windfall. The cold has made you stupid. Come—stir yourself.”
“I’ll report you for disobedience,” threatened Otto, all his former dislike for the fellow welling within him. “Get more wood.”
His distorted thinking played with the fact that Suhren dared to dispute authority with him and he became more incensed.
“Always,” he announced, “you have had too much to say. You will obey my orders. If you were decent at all you would let me have that coat. Hand it over now. You can wear this one back to the billets and see how the wind goes through it.”
“You are crazy,” retorted Suhren. “I got this coat in the drawing and I will keep it.” He threw the last of the fuel on the fire. “I am going back before the storm gets worse,” he added determinedly. “You can do as you wish.”
Otto threw up his rifle. “Give me that coat,” he ordered grimly.
He had taken Suhren by surprise but the fellow, instead of obeying, rushed at him, and Otto pulled trigger. There was no response from his weapon save a dull click, and the next instant Suhren had crashed him backward into the snow.
“Everyone at the billet has been saying you were losing your mind,” gasped Suhren, wrestling the rifle from him, “and now I know they are right. You fool—you would have killed me.”
He jerked back the rifle bolt and peered, but the chamber and magazine were empty. “On a scouting patrol without loading your rifle,” he jeered. “That is proof that you are crazy.”
Otto put all his strength into a desperate lunge, and again he caught Suhren off guard. His shoulder struck the fellow in the middle and threw him down. Then they rolled in the snow and Otto beat at the fellow’s face and drove his knee into Suhren’s groin. Their heavy clothing hampered them but they struggled and fought with surprising fury until Otto weakened and was beaten down under a rain of heavy blows.
He never knew when Suhren left him, and when he had recovered sufficiently to sit up the fire had burned low. He groped for sticks but his sluggish stirring failed to rouse him until he discovered that there was no more fuel. He flung the brush they had used for seats onto the embers and as they blazed tried to push the fire to the fallen tree. A terrific fit of coughing seized him and there were buzzing sounds in his ears. But he finally got the fire licking into the windfall. Then he broke frozen branches from the nearest trees and flung them into the flames.
They blazed with gusto and smoke clouds billowed aloft.
When he had imbibed some warmth Otto stood and gazed about him. A little whispering wind struck at his exposed cheeks like needlepoints and a whirl of driven snow came among the trees. A shudder ran through his aching body, then he squatted by the fire and spoke aloud.
“They are all against me,” he complained. “They know I am sick and that this coat of mine is like paper, but who is there to care? The sergeant has not helped me. I will report to the officer myself. I will tell him….”
His voice trailed off as stupor possessed him. He stirred drowsily, knowing he should attend the fire. Then someone was shouting at him…commands. Dazedly he put his hands up in surrender. Figures were all about him, men dressed in greatcoats such as Suhren was wearing.
He was dimly aware of some words in awkward German and then a flask was held to his lips and he drank eagerly. A fiery liquor rushed the blood in his veins and before he could be sure of anything he was being hustled along the ravine to where the snow was packed like a road. Then he entered a tunnel leading into the ravine bank and was pushed and guided into a chamber where such heat met him that he became dizzy.
An hour later he sat and stared at the strange faces about him, and wondered if he were dreaming. But the food in his stomach and the heart-warming liquids he had drunk assured him that everything was real. These men about him were Russians all right, and they looked like seasoned soldiers. They had their place fitted up like a barracks, too, and everything in order.
It amazed him that they were so kind to him. The sergeant had said that the Russians killed every man they captured, that they tortured their prisoners. It was all lies. He could not wish for better treatment. They had spared no pains to get him warmed. They had given him great helpings of a meaty broth, and cheese and black bread, and then, when he could eat no more, they had given him cigarettes.
“I cannot understand,” he said to the one who acted as interpreter. “We were told you killed prisoners.”
“Of course your officers would tell you that,” the Russian agreed. “They do not want you to surrender. Have another drink and tell us about this place and where your platoon is billeted. We are newly arrived at this post.”
Otto blinked, tried to concentrate his thinking. “How did you arrive?” he blurted.
“By plane,” said the Russian, as one comrade to another. “Our supplies were dropped with us. We have been here a week. How many men are at your billets?”
“Too many, for the rations we have. And no mail has reached us for two weeks.” Otto let loose all the bitterness he had felt through the long shivering nights. He told them about the officer from Berlin who had sent him on a fool’s errand. Talking of the errand made him remember Suhresn and although his mind was becoming confused he told them of the unfairness he had experienced over the Russian coat.
“Feel my coat,” he insisted. “It is thin as paper, and his was warm. Yet they let him take this other one. Is that fair?”
“You are a little drunk,” the Russian said.
“Not too drunk,” returned Otto. “I wish you had arrived sooner so that you could have caught Suhren as well. There is a matter I want to settle with him.”
“Later will do,” soothed the Russian.
The room had become hazy and Otto wanted to sleep. He felt that he should not have talked so loosely but Suhren had hurt him, and no one had sided with him at the billets. Let them stew in their own juice.
When he awoke there was only one man with him, an older fellow who had served the food. “Where are the others?” Otto asked. “Is it morning?”
“Not yet.” The fellow’s German was difficult to understand and he appeared very sleepy. “The others have gone to visit your comrades.”
“To visit them!” Otto’s head was aching but his mind had cleared and a vast uneasiness possessed him. He had babbled too much. “When did they go?”
“They will be there at daybreak,” said the Russian, “and it is snowing. It will be an easy matter.”
Otto visualized what would happen, and was jabbed by a thousand accusations. He pretended to doze again until he heard the Russian snoring.
Then he glanced about him. His equipment and greatcoat were piled in a corner back of the Russian but his cap and gloves were near him. He arose softly, snatched up the blanket that had covered him and, after some moments of anxious groping, found the exit.
The air that met him was razor-edged but he threw the blanket over his head and shoulders and rushed into the darkness. Twice he tripped and fell, and each time he found it more difficult to get up. A frightful fit of coughing seized him so that he had to pause to get his breath. The cold numbed him, made him leaden in his movements. He should have had his greatcoat. The blanket was like nothing.
Thinking of the greatcoat drove his slowing mind to remember Suhren. He stopped, and turned. “He is so smart, that one,” he mumbled, “and the sergeant would not speak to the officer. Let them all be surprised.”
He kept on mumbling about the officer from Berlin, and the fool’s errand he had been sent on…a warm coat was what a man needed…he would get that one from Suhren…there was no hurry….
There was a moment when he knew he was lying in the snow but the Russians would be coming that way and they would give him a coat, one of those warm Russian greatcoats. It was the last thought he had. The snow sifted over him and the breath of the storm hardened him like iron.