War's Unwomanly Face by Svetlana Alexievich

Author:Svetlana Alexievich
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: War, Feminism, History
ISBN: 9785010004941
Publisher: Progress Publishers
Published: 1985-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The village lay at the foot of a hill…As if in a bowl…The Germans never thought we could get through such sand, and they set up very little defense. We passed through their rear very quietly. We descended the hill, captured the sentries, and burst into this village, flew into it. The Germans came running out completely naked, only with submachine guns in their hands. There were Christmas trees standing around…they were all drunk…And in every yard there were no less than two or three tanks. Tankettes stood there, armored vehicles…All their machinery. We destroyed it on the spot, and there was such shooting, such noise, such panic…Everybody rushed about…The situation was such that each one was afraid of hitting his own men. Everything was on fire…The Christmas trees, too, were on fire…

I had eight wounded men…I helped them up the hill…But we committed one blunder: we didn’t cut the enemy’s communications. And the German artillery blanketed us with both mortar and long-range fire. I quickly put my wounded on an ambulance wagon, and they drove off…And before my eyes a shell landed on the wagon, and it was blown to pieces. When I looked, there was only one man left alive there. And the Germans were already going up the hill…The wounded man begged, “Leave me, nurse…Leave me, nurse…I’m dying…” His stomach was ripped open…His guts…All that…He gathered them himself and stuffed them back in…

I thought my horse was bloody because of this wounded man, but then I looked: he was also wounded in the side. I used up a whole individual kit on him. I had several pieces of sugar left; I gave him the sugar. There was shooting on all sides now; you couldn’t tell where the Germans were and where ours. You go ten yards and run into wounded men…I thought: I’ve got to find a wagon and pick them all up. So I rode on, and I saw the slope, and at the foot of it three roads: this way and that way and also straight. I was at a loss…Which way to go? I had been holding the bridle firmly; the horse went wherever I pointed him. Well, so here, I don’t know, some instinct told me, or I’d heard somewhere, that horses sense the road, so before that fork I let go of the bridle, and the horse went in a completely different direction from where I was going to go. He went on and on…

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