Legion of the Damned (4 page)

Since we had to be the best soldiers in the world, all our marches were forced marches, and thus it was not a quarter of an hour before we were steaming. Our feet began to get hot; we opened our mouths and began breathing through them as well, the nose alone being unable to supply sufficient oxygen. Our rifle slings and shoulder straps were heavy brakes on the blood circulation in our arms and our fingers were becoming white and swollen and slightly numb. But those were trifles we no longer heeded. We could do a forced march of sixteen miles without feeling any particular discomfort.

Then came exercises: advance in open formation, in short bursts, one man at a time. With lungs working like bellows we dashed across country, running, crawling across sodden, icy fields, digging ourselves in like frightened animals with our short trenching tools.

But of course we never did it quickly enough. Each time the whistles called us back, and we stood gasping for all too few seconds while they cursed us. Then off again. Advance--advance-- advance. We were caked with wet, plowed earth; our legs shook and then the sweat came, running in rivulets down our bodies and burning and stinging our skins where the fretting straps and heavy equipment had rubbed and made sores. The sweat soaked through our clothes, and many had dark patches on the backs of their tunics. We could scarcely see because the sweat blinded us; our foreheads itched and tingled from being wiped with dirty hands and coarse tunic sleeves. If we stood still our soaking clothes became ice cold. The insides of my thighs and my crotch were skinned and bleeding. We sweated with fear.

Exhausted, we became dully aware that day was breaking. Then it was time to practice being attacked from the air.

We set off at a heavy run down the rough road. Every stone, every little puddle, to say nothing of the damned deep ruts slipping away from our fearfully staring eyes, meant that we had to concentrate on seeing that our feet reacted correctly, so as not to stumble or trip or put a foot wrong. The mere business of getting our feet to work properly, of just running and walking, things you normally do without thinking about, had become an agonizing physical and mental effort. Our legs felt so heavy, so crushingly heavy. But stubbornly we jog trotted and reeled and staggered along in step, at the double. Our otherwise ashen, hollow-eyed faces were as red as lobsters; our eyes rigid and staring, the veins in our foreheads swollen. We gasped for breath; our mouths were dry and slimed; and every now and again a gasp would spatter flecks of white foam.

The whistle shrilled. We dashed to either side of the road, flung ourselves blindly into the ditches, no matter whether there were nettles or water at the bottom, or someone quicker already there. Then the frantic race to get mortars and machine guns into position. It all had to be done in a matter of seconds, so better tear your fingers to shreds or get kicked in the back than that it should be too slow.

On we marched, mile after mile. I believe that I know everything worth knowing about roads: soft roads, hard roads, wide roads, narrow roads, stony, muddy, cemented, boggy, snowy, hilly, graveled, slippery, dusty. My feet have taught me everything worth knowing about roads, callous enemies and tormentors of my feet.

The rain stopped. Then the sun came out. That meant thirst, heavy heads, headaches, spots before the eyes. Your feet and ankles swell in your burning boots. We dragged ourselves along in a Strange kind of trance.

At noon a halt was ordered. Our muscles were so tortured that it hurt even to get them to stop walking; and a few simply did not have the strength to stop, but staggered on after the command was given until they barged into the man in front and stood there swaying with drooping heads, till the others shoved them back into their places.

We were on the outskirts of a little village. A couple of young boys came running up to stare at us. We were to have half an hour's rest. Without stopping to consider that we were many miles from the barracks, we flung ourselves down where we stood, without even loosening our straps, just flung ourselves down and were asleep before we even reached the ground.

That same second, or so it seemed, the whistle shrilled again. But thirty minutes had passed, all our precious rest. The next quarter of an hour was a hell of torment: stiff muscles and feet protested; they did not want to get going again. Every step was a series of stabbing pains shooting right up to your brain. The soles of your feet registered each nail in your boots, so that it was like walking on glass splinters.

But there was no help--no truck to pick up those who fell in the ditch. No, they, poor devils, were given special treatment by a lieutenant and the company's three harshest NCO's. They were hounded and hectored till either they went off their heads and ran amok, or they lost consciousness, or were transformed into will-less robots that obeyed all orders automatically and would have jumped from a fourth-floor window if told to do so. We could hear the NCO's bawling and shouting, threatening to have some wretches up for refusing to obey orders if they did not obey more quickly.

Later in the evening we marched into the barracks square, ready to drop.

"Parade--MARCH!"

We pulled ourselves together with a last effort. Our legs flew out horizontally and our feet thudded against the paving stones. Sparks swirled in front of our eyes; we actually felt our blisters bursting. But we must do it. We must. We brought our lame feet smashing down, smashing the pain. We summoned up our last reserve of strength.

The camp commandant, Oberstleutnant von der Lenz, was: standing at the point where we had to swing round up to our barracks. Captain Lopei ordered:

"No. 3 Company--Eyes--LEFT!"

Our heads turned to the left all right, and we all stared at the slight figure of the colonel; but the stiff movements that are part of the salute were not stiff at all. We even got out of step! Captain Lopei gave a start, halted, went out to the side and watched his company. Then came a sharp:

"No. 3 Company--HALT!"

It was the colonel. There was a moment's deathly silence, then came the colonel's snarling voice:

"Captain Lopei, do you call this a company? If you want to go to the front with the next infantry battalion, just say so. There are plenty of officers who would be more than glad to have your job in the garrison."

The colonel's voice rose in a fury:

"What in hell is this collection of flithied curs you have here? What undisciplined rabble is this? One wouldn't think they were Prussian soldiers. You'd think they were mangy curs. But that can be cured!"

Arrogantly he surveyed our exhausted company. We stood there in a stupor. If only he would finish soon, so that we could get to our quarters, get our things off and sleep.

"That can be cured," he repeated threateningly. "Curs require occupation, a little training. Don't they, Captain Lopei?"

"Yes indeed, Herr Oberstleutnant, a little training."

Dull hatred mounted within us mingled with self-pity. This was going to cost us at least an hour of the most exhausting drill in the German Army, the most devilish, exhausting drill in the German Army. It could only mean parade marching.

Have you ever had the glands in your groin swollen and hard from overwork, so that they hurt at every step, the muscles in your thighs hard balls on which you must thump with all your might every now and again to get them to work, your leg muscles contracted in cramp, either boot feeling as though it weighed a hundredweight and each of your legs a ton, and then try to swing your legs up to thigh level with toes pointed, and do so as lithely, briskly and rhythmically as a chorus girl?

Have you tried, after that, when your ankles are weaklings that have long since given up the game and your toes are curled together in a bloody lump and the soles of your feet are on fire, large blisters filled with water, or burst blisters that bleed and are both fire and splintered glass, have you tried lithely moving forward on one foot while you bring the other poised boot down on the stone flags with a smack? And this has to be done in time, with a precision as though one hundred and thirty-five men were one; it must produce such a report that people stop and listen and say: "There's marching for you! That's magnificent! What an army we have!" The parade march always impresses the immature.

It did not impress us. It is the most accursed, most tiring drill in the army. It has torn more muscles and damaged more lymphatic glands than any other form of training. Ask the doctors!

But we had underestimated our oberstleutnant. We were not to have an hour's parade marching. He had gone now, smartly saluted by Captain Lopei, but before he went he said, "Yes, by Jove, that can be cured. Captain Lopei!"

"Sir!"

"You'll march that lot to the training area and teach them to be soldiers and not a pack of mangy curs. You will not come back before nine o'clock tomorrow. And if by then your company cannot manage a parade march that smashes the paving stones you'll go back again. Understand?"

"I understand, Herr Oberstleutnant."

All night we practiced attacking across open country and parade march.

The next morning at nine o'clock we rhythmically thundered past the oberstleutnant. He was taking no chances. He made the company march past him seven times, and I am sure that if but one of us had for one second been a tenth of a second out of time we would have been sent back a second time.

It was ten o'clock when we were dismissed and tottered blindly to our rooms and slept.

It was an inhuman performance--but then, we were not proper humans. We were mangy curs--a pack of famished curs.

This picture of our training requires one finishing touch. To put everything in its proper light and perspective you must add-- hunger.

We were never able to eat our fill. We were all, in fact, slightly crazy on that point, as on so many others. At the end of the war in 1945 the entire German people was living on starvation rations, but in 1940--41 we had less than the worst situated group of the population--that is, the ordinary civilians--had in 1945. We could buy nothing, because we got no coupons. Dinner was the same every day: a litre of thin beet soup and a handful of sauerkraut to put in it, but we had the sauerkraut oniy every other day. We were not to be spoiled or allowed to become finicky. Meat was a luxury we did not know. In the evening we were issued our dry rations for the coming day: a hunk of rye bread, that, with a little practice, could be cut into five slices, three for that evening, two for breakfast. As well, we had twenty grams of rancid margarine and a morsel of cheese, cheese with the world's highest water content--there must have been five per cent of water in that cheese. On Saturdays we had an extra ration of fifty grams of turnip marmalade. For breakfast we had a thin brew of ersatz coffee, the color of tea, which both tasted and smelled revolting, yet we gulped it down with relish.

Sometimes, when out on an exercise, you might find a potato or a turnip. If you did, you gave it a wipe to get the worst of the earth off, stuffed it into your mouth and ate it. The whole thing was over so quickly that a spectator would have thought you were doing a conjuring trick. It did not take us long to discover that birch bark and a particular kind of grass that grew beside the ditches were quite palatable, perhaps even nourishing, but at any rate things that stayed down and dulled the pangs of hunger. Here is the recipe: take some birch bark or grass, grind it between two steel helmets, add a suitable quantity of ersatz coffee and eat as gruel.

If, by a miracle, one of us was sent a bread coupon there was feasting in the fortunate one's room. A whole loaf!

We always dreaded the Monday inspection. At the morning roll call we had to fall in wearing steel helmet, parade tunic, chalkwhite trousers with creases as sharp as knives, pack, belt, ammunition pouches, trenching tool, bayonet, haversack and rifle. Your greatcoat had to be rolled up in the regulation way and hung across your chest.

Every man had to have a clean, green handkerchief in his pocket. And that handkerchief had to be folded in the regulation way.

Cleanliness harms no one. Nor does order. And in an army there must naturally be both cleanliness and order, all worked out to an appropriate and detailed scheme. The conscientious soldier spends an incredible amount of time on cleanliness and order, but the soldier in a penal battalion devotes all his time to it--that is, all the time not otherwise occupied. We did nothing all Sunday but wash and clean and fold together in the regulation manner, hang things up in the regulation way and put others in the place laid down by the regulations. Our leather had to have a gloss on it as though it were varnished; there must not be a speck on our uniform or equipment, either inside or out. I can assert with utter truthfulness that when the men of a German penal battalion go on parade on Monday they are immaculate from top to toe.

But I also think that there must be something wrong with military order and cleanliness if, after toiling a whole Sunday to achieve it, you do not feel any of that satisfaction, that ease of mind that one should normally feel after such a clean up.

That parade was no festival of purification. It was a nightmare of fear. The immaculately clean, tidy soldier did not feel clean; he merely felt like a hunted animal.

I find that I keep using these expressions "hunted animals," "panic fear" and "wild with terror." I know that repetition is bad, that good literary style calls for variety in expression, but I am afraid that I shall have to go on sinning, for how can you find a variety of expression for what is uniform? Some perhaps could, but I am not sure that I can. I am too tired, too bemused, too desperate, sometimes also too angry to be able to devote time and energy to the search for shades of meaning and fine distinctions. What I have to tell is so tragic; and even now, all these years afterward, I am sometimes so oppressed by it that I feel that I have the right to ask for your help in making good where I have failed from your own vocabulary. As long as you understand what I mean, I do not mind if now and again you shake your head and say: "He could have said that better."