Читать онлайн "Burning Magnesium" - Svensson Lennart - RuLit

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Then the Badger disappeared. The warlike trait, intimated in the dialogue above, would however remain in the dream. How had Arno experienced his war, his Eastern Front séjour? – This Arno continued to dream this night, dreaming of words, concepts and images. He dreamed:

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“Cloudy sky, the roar of a jet plane you can’t see. At the stone walclass="underline" empty cases.

So did we love you that, would you die, our love could awaken you –

Timeless moment, dateless date, the ever ongoing flow of here-and-now –

A curtain fluttering –

A door slamming –

I meditate by pushing 7.92 mm rounds into the magazine of the StG, buckling up the mechanism, securing and looking out over the fore field. Then you’ll come to rest, thus you’ll shape your life according to an actively esoteric worldview. While I act, I have my mind rooted in the cosmic calm. Such is my way of esotericism. And it never takes time off. An Operational Scout lives his creed in every second, every moment.

Similarly, you can argue that the combat zone is a spiritually heightened zone, a zone of devotion, inspiration, initiation and inebriation. A combat zone is a temple, an open-air temple, an endless temple. Hoc omne templum. In this sacred zone the Operational Scout conducts operations, finding rest in action.

There’s no religion, no morality, no transcendence, no promise of how good everything becomes after death. Because, everything is present in the here and now, immanently. All that is needed is to take responsibility for your actions and have knowledge of cause and effect. If I do this, this will happen. If I decline to do this, that will happen.

This is the ethics the combat zone teaches every soldier.

Ammunition box

Machine pistol

Bipod

Bread bag

Bayonet in scabbard

Spruce branches

Sailcloth

A low-wing, single-seat fighter took off from an airbase in the combat zone. Wow, thought Arno who saw it in his dream, how symbolic, how archetypal. This is the fighter which is all fighters, in the combat zone that is all combat zones. And I, Arno, am the soldier who is all soldiers.”

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This was what Arno dreamed this night. And he dreamed still more. He dreamed the following, a monologue of mantra-like affirmations:

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“The battle on the plain involved battle groups, battalions, companies, platoons and teams – and one of these teams was led by me, Arno Greif. I said, go off and bomb the jungle –

I said: grease the barrel with armol –

I said: still leaves second gear rubber –

I said: So did we love you that, would you die, our love would awaken you –

I serve

7.92 mm Sturmgewehr

I shine

7.92 mm MG

I balance

Fully dead at last, and wondrously alive. I’m an Operational Scout who fights and fights well. If I die, I’ll die, but I don’t seek death per se.

I think

inverted gull-wing, two-seat attack aircraft with two 37 mm machine guns

I will

40-ton tank with 75 mm cannon

I expand

81 mm mortar, smoke, flare and explosive grenade

I progress

I am the hinge of the door, I stay still as it slams shut – I am the motionless in the moving, the constancy of the variance, movement as a state – I am the unmoved mover, ho ou kinoúmenon kinei, unmoved in my inner mind, balanced, untouched – the unseen seer, the unspoken speaker, the unheard hearer –

I nurture

A curtain fluttering –

A door slamming –

I sacrifice

A door slamming –

A curtain fluttering –

A curtain flutters in an open window. Yes – but is it the curtain fluttering or my mind that flutters…? It is the mind. Be peaceful, therefore, become transcendental to this world of movement and change. Join the movement as a state, seek rest in action.

I economise

Oh dear, war is terrible, the Major said. Well then, step down and resign. Put up or shut up –

I possess

Live, live, that’s the voice she hears while she thinks and plays and creates – everything is vanity, everything earthly lives, lives – but she herself becomes the work she creates –

I conquer

9 mm Parabellum Pistol

I exist

Seven rounds in the magazine, cock the weapon, one bullet ends up in the chamber. Check safety catch. Remove the magazine, insert another round –

I breathe

Cross the abyss and reach solid ground on the other side. Look futility in the eye, shape up and live on. With time meaning will emerge, you only have to have the ability to listen within. So, recognise that the abyss surrounds you, affirm this, affirm nihilism. That is, die spiritually. And cross the abyss. And be resurrected. Stirb und werde –

I expand

Magically pulling a shimmering veil over everything, attracting birds and flowers, trees and leaves and in the spirit of spring saying, “live, live” –

I organise

9 mm bullet, service pistol. “Oh dear, war is terrible” –

I shine

That’s right, “I shine”. In my greatest moment I’m still ready to serve. Stirb und werde. Fully dead at last, and wondrously alive. Going on superconductivity to the horizon and seeing everything moving in slow motion.

I’m moving beyond sun and moon, night and north. Beyond the Beyond. There, the burning magnesium brightens up a tangible landscape, this should be like an artificial moonlight leading the way for an Operational Scout: Arno Greif, the man without further ado.”

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Passages

Next in Arno’s dream he was again interrogated, now by an unseen actor, and it was about aspects of the German Army he had served in:

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“Q: Did you ever see an MC combination? MC with a sidecar?

A: Yeah, I did. What about it?

Q: Fancy thing, eh? Das Heer had a lot of MCs.

A: True. They even had Motorcycle Battalions in the beginning. Like some modern cavalry. The idea was scrapped after a while, I guess in 1940 or somewhat later.

Q: No need for an MC infantry?

A: The mechanised infantry role was already served by Panzer Followers in Hanomags.

Q: Panzer Followers like you?

A: Mm-hm.

Q: As such, do you have any more opinions and experiences? Of vehicles? SdKfz 251? SdKfz 7 tonne? Sturmbär? Jagdpanther? Flakvierling?

A: Truly an amazing menagerie. I’d say, there was a lot of finesse in the concepts behind all this hardware. The Russians, for their part, focused on a handful of models and made tens of thousands of each. The Germans diversified and variegated and ended up in a possible mess.

Q: But the Americans and the English had a wide variety of armoured vehicles. Kind of copying the German concept?