The forgotten soldier by Guy Sajer

Author:Guy Sajer [Guy Sajer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histoire
ISBN: 9781574882865
Published: 2001-10-02T18:10:42+00:00

THE BREAKTHROUGH AT KONOTOP

We drove for an hour-which meant about thirty miles-before it grew dark.

We were all anxious to stop so that we could get rid of the thick, choking dust which coated us from head to foot. We were also exhausted and longing for sleep. Although a good bed in a warm barracks would have been paradise, any place where we could have stretched out and lost consciousness would have done, and we knew that when we did stop we would collapse onto the ground, and sink immediately into blackness.

The dark sky was filled with heavy black clouds lit up on their outer fringes. Large drops of rain began to fall as the storm broke. The rain-so often a curse-seemed like a blessing this time, washing off the filthy faces we turned up to meet it. It soon became a downpour, running down our collars and over our bodies, like a gift from Providence to friend and foe alike, making us all smile with a sense, however partial, of returning well-being. The soaking cloth of the uniforms on our tightly packed bodies clung to all of us-gray-green for the Germans, violet-brown for the Russians. We all grinned at each other without distinction, like players from two teams in the showers after a match. There was no longer any feeling of hatred or vengeance, only a sense of life preserved and overwhelming exhaustion. The rain became so heavy that we had to improvise shelter, and covered our heads and shoulders with our ground sheets. Although hardly anyone understood more than a few words of the other language, we were all laughing and trading cigarettes-Hannover cigarettes for machorka tobacco from the Tartar plain. We smoked and joked over nothing-a "nothing" which in fact represented the most absolute human joy I had ever known. The exchange of tobacco, the smoke under the ground sheets, which made us choke and cough, and the simple fact of laughter without reserve-all of this made a small island of joy in a sea of tragedy, which affected us like a shot of morphine. We were able to forget the hate which divided us, as our stupefied senses reawakened to an awareness of life. Understanding nothing, I laughed uncontrollably, as a curious sensation took hold of me and filled my veins. Suddenly I was covered with gooseflesh, as one is during a particularly moving piece of music. The rain was beating on the metal hood. Would we have to shoot our Russian fellow passengers tomorrow? That seemed impossible; it was impossible that such things could continue.

We had just caught up with a regiment of motorized cavalry, stopped in the middle of nowhere. Streams of water were running down every exposed surface; the dull finish of the sidecars sheltering under the dripping leaves of the trees at the edge of the woods glistened with raindrops.

Wesreidau climbed down from his sidecar to talk to the cavalry commander. The fellows in the sidecars had long oilskins which pretty well covered them, and kept them more or less dry.

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