We set off towards the northwest, and a sector somewhere near Voronezh. We had been given special rations for the cold, new first-aid kits, and a two-day supply of precooked dinners. We took a track more or less blocked with snow — which crossed the line of defenses that cut off the steppe. A bulky, hooded soldier, who was the only sentry in sight, waved to us as we slowly went by him. His round shape looked enormously vulnerable as he stood there, puffing on a huge covered pipe, with his feet planted in the snow.
After an hour or so on the trail, which grew increasingly snowy, we fastened the runners to the wheels. Our leather boots, although they were remarkably waterproof, were not the ideal foot gear For tramping through nearly two feet of snow. We tired quickly, and hung on to the horses’ harnesses or the edges of the sleighs with the desperation of cripples clinging to their canes. I myself twisted my fingers into the long hair of one of those shaggy ponies whose pelts are thick and tufted, like sheep’s wool. However, the horses’ pace was too quick, and forced us into an exhausting rhythm which made us pour with sweat despite the cold. From time to time one of the leaders of a column would stop and watch the long convoy going by, catching his breath under the pretext of checking the line of march. When they rejoined the column, it was always at the end of the line: I never saw anyone run back to the front.
Hals, who had become a real friend, was holding on to the other side of my horse. Although he was much bigger and stronger than I, he also looked as though he were nearly through. His face was almost hidden between his upturned collar and his cap, which had been pulled down as far as it could go. His red nose, like everyone else’s, was producing a plume of white vapor.
We hardly spoke. I had learned to be as silent as Germans usually are. But, even without words, I knew that Hals was a friend who felt as warmly toward me as I did toward him. We gave each other occasional smiles of encouragement, as if to say: “Hang on! We’ll make it!”
We halted at dusk. Feeling that I had been pushed beyond the limits of my strength, I collapsed onto a cart shaft. My legs ached with stiffness, and I could feel exhaustion pulling down my face.
Hals let himself fall onto the snow.
“Aie, my poor feet.”
All along the convoy, men were sitting or lying on the snow.
“We’re not spending the night here, are we?” asked a young soldier who was sitting next to me.
We looked at each other uneasily.
“I don’t give a damn what anyone else does,” said Hals, opening his mess tin. “I’m not taking another step.”
“You say that because you’re still sweating. Wait until you’re a little colder. Then you’ll have to move if you don’t want to freeze.”
“Shit,” said Hals without looking up.
“This food stinks.”
I opened my mess tin too. The cooked dinners they had given us early in the afternoon had long since cooled, and then frozen in the metal containers. It looked like tripe.
All around us, other soldiers were making the same discovery.
“God damn it!” said Hals. “But there’s no point in just throwing it out.”
“What do you think?” someone asked a feld, who was looking at the stuff in his own tin.
“Those bastards must have given us rotten meat.”
“Or a week of leftovers. It’s unbelievable. There’s enough food in that town for a whole division.”
“It’s not edible…. It stinks!”
“We’ll have to get out some cans.”
“No you won’t,” the feldwebel flared out at us. “We still have a long way to go, and none too much food as it is. Throw away the meat if you don’t like it, and eat the cereal.”
Hals, who was never too particular, crunched something vaguely like a lamb cutlet between his teeth. Two seconds later, he spat it out on the snow.
“Pah! It’s rotten. The shits must have cooked a Bolshevik.”
In spite of our dismal situation, we couldn’t help laughing. Faced with the ruins of the meal he had been anticipating with such eagerness, Hals was on the brink of one of his rare fits of rage. Given his giant size, these were always impressive. With a stream of oaths, he gave his mess tin a magisterial kick, which sent it flying across the snow. There was a silence, and then a few laughs.
“You’ve made things a lot better for yourself,” said the young soldier standing beside me.
Hals spun round, but said nothing. Then he slowly went off to pick up his tin. I began to wolf down the mess which had been flavored by the rotten meat. Hals, who looked crushed, collected his battered tin, whose contents had been scattered across the snow. A few minutes later, cursing a cruel fate, we were both digging into my ration.
The noncoms appointed guards, and we were faced with the problem of where to sleep. Already clenched with cold, we wondered where and how to spread out our ground sheets. Some men dug themselves hollows in the snow, others constructed rough huts, using the sacks of dried grass which hung from each side of the horses’ collars. Others tried to insure a supply of warmth by making the horses lie down. We had already spent several nights out of doors, but always under more or less sheltered conditions. The fact of sleeping absolutely in the open in such appalling cold terrified us. Here and there, clusters of men discussed what we might do. Some thought we should keep on walking until we came to a village, or at least to some sort of building, on the grounds that it was better to die of exhaustion than of cold. According to this faction, if we stayed where we were, at least half of us would be dead by morning.
“We won’t be coming to any village for at least three days,” the noncoms told us.
“We’ll have to make out the best we can.”
“If only we could light a fire!” one man exclaimed. His teeth were chattering, and his voice was almost a whimper. Appalled by the prospect, we prepared ourselves for the night as best we could. Hals and I reorganized the load on a sleigh so that there was a space between the cases of explosives big enough to hold us both. Despite the obvious danger of such a resting place, we preferred disintegration in a hot flash to death by freezing.
Hals had the spirit to crack a few obscene jokes, and they made me laugh in spite of my misery. We managed to doze intermittently, huddled together, haunted by the fear of freezing in our sleep.
We spent a fortnight in these bitter conditions, and it proved fatal for many of our group. On the third day we had two cases of pneumonia. On subsequent days we had frozen limbs and Hergezogener Brand, a kind of gangrene from cold, which first attacks the exposed portion of the face, and then other parts of the body, even if they are covered. Those affected by this condition had to apply a thick yellow pomade, which made them look both comic and pitiable. Two soldiers, driven mad by despair, left the convoy one night, and lost themselves in the featureless immensity of snow. Another very young soldier called for his mother, and cried for hours. We tried alternately comforting and cursing him for disturbing our rest. Toward morning, after he had been quiet for a while, a shot jolted us all awake. We found him a short way off, where he had tried to put an end to his nightmare. But he had bungled his effort and didn’t die until the afternoon.
My feet, tortured by so much walking and by the cold, caused me agonizing pain at first, but soon became so numb that I felt almost nothing. Later, when a doctor checked us, I saw that three of my toes had turned an ashen gray. Their nails remained stuck to the double pair of pestilential socks which I took off for the examination. A painful injection saved by toes from amputation. It still seems astonishing to me that any of us should have survived such an ordeal; especially I, who have never been particularly strong.