Mortar shells had been bursting for half an hour in the trench by the foxhole and on the dugout of Schnitzer’s surrounded platoon. They went up from the Red Army controlled sap outside the former company HQ, tipped at the apex of their flight like steel shuttlecocks, and exploded with eerie precision just at the entrance. There was no longer any dead ground, and the depth of the trench was no use: they were rats in a trap. It didn’t seem possible that the Russians could have seen the deep dugout. There was nowhere from where one could see into it, and there were no bodies on the rim of it. A fiendish chance was directing the rifle-grenades, and Major Schnitzer thought he knew its name: it was Captain Waldmüller. In actual fact, though, it was the Russian hand-grenade which had been flung, not into the Captain’s shelter, but over the perimeter of the trench. And there was something methodical about the operation of this chance. It had snuffed out Corporal Schute like a candle flame in the wind.
The Runner left the Corporal to lie where he was, and barricaded himself into the dugout. He left just a crack open. That way he could see into the trench a little way. He pressed himself against the passage that led down into the foxhole, and peered out.
The foxhole was proof of the fact that the blocking position had seen better days. One day when the combat engineers had relieved the trench platoon, they had found a sign: Villa Foxhole. If it had still been in its original place, it would almost have been a guarantee of quiet and security. But the manner in which it was found practically bespoke the opposite. The combat engineers saw that the trench was not very deep. They began to dig straight away, and saw that the labyrinth of the blocking position had simultaneously served as a mass grave. Under just a hand’s breadth of soil, they started to encounter bodies. Their shovels bit into mouldering flesh, scraped bones, smashed through skeletons. By the light of flares, they encountered a skull with a Russian helmet adhering to it. A skeleton held together by a lichenous belt. Thousands of little flies swarmed through the trench. Whoever wasn’t wearing a gasmask got lungfuls of putrescence. The blocking position had turned into a pit of pestilence. Ghostly shadows flung shovelfuls of stinking muck over the parapet like maniacs. They were like divers who had gone down into a sunken wreck, and stared at each other through its deadlights and portholes. The mass grave had three distinct layers. The engineers had to wear gloves where they couldn’t reach with their shovels. And in between these layers, someone found the half-rotted piece of wood bearing the legend VILLA FOXHOLE. Written by one of the bony hands that had been shovelled over the parapet. So there must have been days here when they had leaned against the trench walls with their shirts off, smoked cigarettes, talked about leave, and lit fires against the midges. But that was a while ago.
The passage where the Runner was now lying was a runnel cut diagonally into the ground. Narrow as a sewage pipe, and dark and damp. At the end was an entrance with a real wood door. A big lid off a chest, hung on leather hinges, and with Army Property! This way up! written on it. And behind the door, an anteroom. Incredible luxury. Perhaps an airlock. It was too narrow to serve for accommodation. But it was panelled with pine boards, and even lined with newspaper. If you were bored, you could read that the German armies were continuing their advance east, that Herr Maier had slipped away peacefully in his sleep, that eggs would be distributed again on Monday. But that must be a hundred years ago. The accommodation room was behind a further lid. There was room here for an entire platoon, but it was too low to stand up in. On the floor there was something that must once have been hay. Muddy boots and stagnant air had turned it to mouldering dung. On this dung there were now nine wounded men, among them Captain Zostchenko. Early that morning, there had been eleven. The Runner had lugged out the other two, and deposited them over the parapet. They had bled to death. From the living quarters, separated by a canvas sheet, there was an opening into the sleeping quarters. That had been wrecked by a direct hit from a shell. Twelve Russian soldiers had been taken in their sleep by the shell. It hadn’t been possible to remove the bodies. The rubble couldn’t be cleared, otherwise there was a chance the foxhole would have collapsed. No, right from the start, they hadn’t had too many illusions about this position. Not the Captain, who was now in Russian hands in the company HQ. Not the Sergeant, who had done a bunk to Emga. Not the NCO who was manning the machine gun. And least of all himself, the Runner. The shelter was like a dark tomb, filled with an infernal stench.
For that reason, and no other, the Runner had gone to lie in the passageway. If a rifle-grenade exploded at its mouth, he would turn his head away in a flash. It was still preferable to enduring the groans and cries of the wounded down in the hole. Outside the entrance, the dead Schute kept adding to his collection of shrapnel. Each time, he moved, and it looked as though he was still alive, or maybe being electrocuted. Now he waved with his hand, now he flipped over, and his dead eyes confronted the Runner, as though to say: Well, what do you say now? There wasn’t really a whole lot you could say . . .
The pool in the Schutes’ garden probably wouldn’t get built now. Not unless Frau Schute married again, that is. She looked pretty young on the photo he’d seen of her. Her letter was in the dead man’s breast pocket. It was only a week old, and had already suffered from a bit of shrapnel. Pretty harmless letter, really. He wasn’t to worry about her, she was fine. Then something about the garden, about how hard it was to get a maid these days, and a room that mustn’t be allowed to be left empty . . . The lodger was very nice. And then: there were a lot of stories these days about soldiers going off with girls. She was liberal in that regard, life was too short. A sensible woman, Frau Schute. Modern views. Perhaps even a tad too modern. Various points in the letter had not been clear to the recipient; he, the Runner, had had to read it too. He also claimed not quite to see what was going on. But there was another letter as well, that Schute didn’t know about. ‘Here, read this,’ said the Battalion Adjutant. ‘You decide if Schute should get this or not.’ It was a neighbour writing with observations that people had made of Frau Schute’s relationship with her lodger. And that was very clear. The Runner had looked at the Adjutant and shaken his head. In all probability, the business would take care of itself. And that’s what had happened. A period of mourning, for public consumption. Firm, silent handshakes. Long faces. The lodger continued to be very nice. Life is short. Anyway. Hadn’t Schute himself? . . . No? Well, never mind. Where his wife was so accommodating. There were girls everywhere. A soldier’s life – a fun life! Big firework display on Hill 308. Commando raid against Russian bunker position. Corporal Schute right wingman. Green flares. Surprise firing. Machine-gun bursts. Run two hundred yards across open terrain. Hand-grenades. Life is short, Schute. Sure, with a strange man in the house, you’re bound to get tongues wagging. Mine-laying at midnight. Schute responsible for activating them. Russian machine guns spraying no man’s land. Use any available cover. With a live mine, your life is hanging by a thread anyway. You can be assured I’ll be accommodating. 0610: attack. Concentric charge. Go on, Schute, get out of that trench. Heart pulsing in your neck, lungs bursting. On – under the bullets. Arm the fuses. A man who is exempt from active service. Alarm at dawn. The Russians are in front of our lines. Hand-grenades out! Too late, they’re on us. Take the rifle-butt, the bayonet, the field-shovel. You must kill. For the sake of your wife, Schute! For a . . .
The Runner picked up a stone and flung it at the face of the dead Corporal Schute. And now he wanted to take another look at the puffy face down in the foxhole, with the buck teeth and the wound to the hip. He crawled backwards down the passage. He slithered over moist soil. Kicked open the chest-lid door. His hands groped in the darkness over the papered walls. Then he found the door to the main room. In front of him, in the dim candlelight, a gurgling bundle. The replacement with the horse face and the laid-open hip. The baker. Red-rimmed eyes looked at him.
‘It seems the story you told was true after all,’ the Runner growled maliciously to him. ‘You slept with soldiers’ wives and paid them with bread. You gave the local Commandant a car. You paid off the Mayor. You and your mill! But it was no good to you in the end.’ The horse face looked at him in astonishment. ‘You blabbed it all in your fever, you sonofabitch!’ The Runner yelled in triumph: ‘Now you’ve got your just deserts. We’re surrounded. You’ll never get out of this shithole.’
He spat against the wall, and reeled out. He was deaf to the howls of the wounded. And to the mortar that could tear him in pieces any second. He didn’t see the shellbursts, or dead Schute either. He took his rifle, and smashed the stock off it. He tossed the broken weapon into the foxhole, and pulled himself up the wall of the passage. Before he straightened up, he pulled his crumpled pass out of his pocket. Then he jumped up and ran. With arms aloft, and the scrap of paper in his right hand.
The Russian rifle fire stopped in surprise. He found himself at the centre of an eerie stillness. All he heard was his breath, the smacking sound of his boots when he trod in puddles. Suddenly he sank down. Any moment he was waiting for the whiplash of a gunshot, in front of him or behind him. Nothing happened. Only his boots got heavier. Every step took him closer to the line of swamp. He hadn’t thought of that. The morass clung to his feet like lead. Impressions blurred in front of his eyes. Crazy faces started dancing in front of him: now it was the hill, now it was his two kids, holding out their hands to him, and finally a couple of fireballs. His feet were up past the ankles in porridge. A few yards on, and it was calf-high. He lost one boot, then the other. Ran on barefooted. Waved the pink scrap of paper like a lunatic. The bandage started to come off his thumb, waved above him like a white flag. Finally the barbed wire. His uniform was shredded. His skin ripped, limbs ached. Dead Russians dangled in the barbed wire. Contorted faces under battered helmets. Now . . .
Now the shot had to come. From one side or the other. Why did it not come? As if they couldn’t see him. Or were they all watching? Saw his cowardice, and reckoned he wasn’t worth a bullet? The voice of the NCO: You coward! His own voice: I’m not a coward. A deserter, jeered the NCO. No one had called out. He was hearing things. The barbed wire was behind him. He dropped exhausted into a pit. Quaking with fear, he held out the pink slip to a pair of slitty eyes.
Two, three brown-clad forms launched themselves at him. Pinned him to the ground. Went through his pockets. Let him go. An unambiguous gesture gave him to understand he was to crawl on along the pit. A guard came after him. Above him, twittering bullets. From the German lines. At last he dared to stand up. The short tube of a trench mortar pointed to the sky. Hostile glances were directed at him. On the flat terrain, a tank, its gun pointing west. Soldiers hunkered down in the lee of it. No one paid any attention to the pink slip the Runner was still holding out in his hand. Even though he showed it to everyone he saw.
A leather-clad figure climbed out of the tank, jumped down beside him in the trench. The Commissar wore a pistol on a string around his neck. He went up to him, smacked him hard across the face. The blow burned his cheek. He felt miserable. He began to pant for breath, and his bare feet hurt him. He tried the might of the free pass once more. The man ripped it out of his hand, and trampled it into the mud. He felt he had lost his most valuable possession. The Commissar screamed at him, but he couldn’t understand a word. More blows. Rough hands tore at his pockets. The photo of his children, the photo of his wife, torn in pieces and scattered over the ground. Tears came to the Runner’s eyes. The Commissar spat in his face. He screamed out a command. One of the Red Guards grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away. Kicks lit into his back, a parting cuff knocked his head. He fell down. His hand groped for a shred of a photograph. He tumbled into a ditch after his guard. The ditch led back from the line. They tripped over dead Russians. One of them bore a resemblance to Corporal Schute, and suddenly all the others looked familiar as well. Pale and lifeless – a waxworks. Skin velvety like peach skin. The lips seemed to move. He saw a mocking, leering grin . . .
‘Let me go,’ he screamed in rage. His escort smashed him in the chest with a rifle butt. His last word turned into a gurgle. He tottered on. They came to the foot of a west-facing slope. Innumerable holes dug in it. The Runner was shoved into one of these. A group of Red Guards took him over. They led him along a passageway that had water dripping off the ceiling. Just like the foxhole, thought the Runner, only more extensive and damper. They came to a cave. He saw a wobbly table. The interrogation began. He stood barefoot in a puddle of water. A candle leaked wax on the table. He was falling over tired. A chill crept up his legs. A mild voice the other side of the candle asked questions. He couldn’t make out the face, couldn’t see through the trembling candle flame. Behind it, everything melted into darkness, but he wasn’t allowed to move. Beside his face a hand was toying with a pistol. When he didn’t want to answer the first question, he felt a cold muzzle against his neck. The voice reeled off question after question. He had to answer fast, and without hesitation. If he hesitated, the pistol butt smashed him on the back of the head. They had surely broken his skull. He didn’t know where the answers came from. They flew to him from somewhere. Company? Battalion? Commanding officer? Strength of the unit? Artillery positioned where? He answered every one. He wanted to add that he was a deserter; that it said on the pass that he would be well treated. The voice didn’t give him the time to say any of that. It was an unfeeling machine that was confronting him. The chill from the puddle was creating an icy fire in his belly. His head ached with fever. Even his thumb began to hurt. He was swaying. The candle slid towards him, retreated. They had no pity. He was spouting nonsense. They beat him. Kicked him in the stomach. His knees were bleeding. His tongue licked across his gums. His teeth lay on the ground, hard pieces of dirt with blood on them. They kicked him in the testicles until he doubled up. As he fell, he whimpered for mercy. His vocal cords failed. With his hands he tried to convey that he was a deserter. They dragged him out to the exit. Rolled him down the steep slope. He somersaulted down. His battered face brushed the earth. A rock hit him on the forehead. He opened his eyes. They saw a new tormentor. He no longer felt the blows that pulled him to his feet and drove him forward. He tumbled through the ditch, past guns, equipment and Red Guards. They watched him pass, as if he’d come up from the Underworld. He spat blood. His ragged trousers were like a loincloth. Shreds of fabric clung to his bloodied filthy thighs. His legs quaked like steel rods. Sinew and bone. He ran in the sun. His shadow skipped after him like an imp. He was like a shy cave-dwelling beast that had lost its way in the daylight and was looking in dazzlement for somewhere to hide.
He would have fallen over a stretcher, had not his escort caught him by the arm. The Red Guard forced him to pick up one end. The other fellow, a Russian, he only ever saw the back of. They were carrying a casualty. His guard could no longer drive him forward, but the weight of the stretcher threatened to pull him down at any moment. He was as stiff as a piece of wood. Every step was a jab in the spine, every unevenness of the ground a burning pain in his chest. He pressed his smashed gums together. He had to cough. He spat. A gobbet of blood flew into the grass.
The wounded man on the stretcher stared up at him. He was terrified the battered specimen of humanity would drop him. Dimly the Runner saw the imploring eyes resting on him. Strange sounds clicked in his ears. Like a hammer striking tree trunks. When air-pressure swatted him aside, he saw the guns point their gaping maws to the heavens. He no longer heard. He was deaf.
At some spot swarming with men in white bandages, he was allowed to set down the stretcher. He was buffeted this way and that. Soldiers elbowed him aside. Red Guards, wearing the same filthy rags as he was. His own guard was lost in the crush. Strange sounds reached his ears as though through a fog. A white coat surfaced. Two hands carefully pulled off his tunic. A needle pierced his right upper arm. Immediately, a sweetish stream of warmth and serenity flowed into his veins. The drumming at the back of his head abated. His muscles relaxed. He sank to the ground with leaden exhaustion. He watched as someone bandaged up his thumb, daubed his gums with a styptic liquid. He was given a space on the grass, was covered with a coat that smelled of camphor, and sank in a sea of dull indifference. In the noisy confusion of the dressing-station, he thought he had finally found the best spot in the world.