We quickly crossed the forest and took to the fields. The snow was melting on the plowed earth, we sank into it up to our calves; between each plot of land ran rivulets full of water bordered with barbed-wire fences, not tall but hard to pass. Then we traveled on little dirt paths, also muddy, but easier, which we had to leave whenever we approached villages. It was tiring, but the air was brisk and the countryside deserted and quiet; on the roads, we walked at a good pace, Thomas and I a little ridiculous in our dress uniforms with our legs all smeared with mud. Piontek carried the supplies; our only weapons were our two service pistols, Lüger automatics. Near the end of the afternoon, we reached Rambin and paused in a small grove of beech and ash trees. It was snowing again, a wet, sticky snow that the wind blew into our faces. A little river flowed on our right; to our left, a little farther on, we could make out the railroad and the first houses. “We’ll wait for nightfall,” Thomas said. I leaned back against a tree, pulling the folds of my coat under me, and Piontek handed us hard-boiled eggs and sausages. “I couldn’t find any bread,” he said sadly. Thomas pulled out of his bag the little bottle of brandy he had taken from me and offered us each a swig. The sky was darkening, the snow flurries were beginning again. I was tired and fell asleep against the tree. When Thomas woke me my coat was dusted with snow and I was stiff from the cold. There was no moon, no light came from the village. We followed the edge of the wood up to the railroad, then walked in the dark in single file along the embankment. Thomas had taken out his pistol and I imitated him, without really knowing what I’d do with it if we were surprised. Our footsteps crunched on the snowy gravel between the tracks. The first houses, dark and silent, appeared to the right of the rails, near a large pond; the little train station at the entrance to the village was locked; we stayed on the tracks to pass through the hamlet. Finally we could put our pistols away and walk more easily. The track bed was slippery and crumbled beneath our feet, and the spacing of the ties kept us from walking at a normal pace along the tracks; at last, one by one, we left the embankment and walked alongside it in the virgin snow. A little farther on, the tracks once again went through a large pine forest. I felt tired, we’d been walking for hours, I wasn’t thinking about anything, my head remained void of any idea or any image, all my effort went into my footsteps. I was breathing heavily, and along with the crunching of our boots on the wet snow it was one of the only sounds I heard, a haunting sound. A few hours later, the moon rose behind the pines, not quite full; it cast patches of white light on the snow through the trees. Later still, we reached the edge of the forest. Beyond a large plain, a few kilometers in front of us, a yellow light danced in the sky and we could make out the crackle of guns, hollow, muffled explosions. The moon illuminated the snow on the plain and I could make out the black line of the railroad, the bushes, the little scattered woods. “They must be fighting around Belgarde,” Thomas said. “Let’s sleep a little. If we approach now, we’ll get shot by our own men.” Sleeping in the snow wasn’t very appealing to me; with Piontek, I gathered some dead branches together to form a nest, rolled myself up in a ball, and fell asleep.
A rude blow on my boot woke me up. It was still dark. Several forms were standing around us, I could see the steel of machine guns glinting. A voice whispered abruptly: “Deutsche? Deutsche?” I sat up and the shape moved back: “Excuse me, Herr Offizier,” a voice said in a strong accent. I stood up; Thomas was already standing. “You are German soldiers?” he asked then, also in a low voice. “Jawohl, Herr Offizier.” My eyes were growing used to the darkness: I could make out SS insignia and blue-white-red badges on the men’s coats. “I’m an SS-Obersturmbannführer,” I said in French. A voice exclaimed: “You see that, Roger, he speaks French!” The first soldier replied: “Our apologies, Obersturmbannführer. We couldn’t see you well in the dark. We thought you were deserters.”—“We’re from the SD,” Thomas said, also in French, with his Austrian accent. “We were cut off by the Russians and we’re trying to rejoin our lines. And you?”—“Oberschütze Lanquenoy, Third Company, First Platoon, zu Befehl, Standartenführer. We’re with the Charlemagne Division. We were separated from our regiment.” There were a dozen of them. Lanquenoy, who seemed to be leading them, explained the situation in a few words: they had been given the order to leave their position several hours ago and to retreat to the south. Most of the regiment, which they were trying to rejoin, must have been a little farther to the east, near the Persante River. “Oberführer Puaud is in charge. There are still some guys from the Wehrmacht in Belgarde, but it’s bloody hot over there.”—“Why aren’t you heading north?” Thomas asked curtly. “Toward Kolberg?”—“We don’t know, Standartenführer,” Lanquenoy said. “We don’t know anything. There are Russkoffs everywhere.”—“The road must be cut off,” another voice said.—“Are our troops still holding Körlin?” Thomas asked.—“We don’t know,” Lanquenoy said.—“Do we still hold Kolberg?”—“We don’t know, Standartenführer. We don’t know anything.” Thomas asked for a flashlight and had Lanquenoy and another soldier show us the terrain on the map. “We’re going to try to head north and reach Körlin or, if not that, Kolberg,” Thomas said finally. “Do you want to come with us? In a little group, we could pass the Russian lines, if we have to. They must just be holding the roads, maybe a few villages.”—“It’s not that we don’t want to, Standartenführer. We’d like to, I think. But we have to rejoin our buddies.”—“As you like.” Thomas had them give him a weapon and some ammunition, which he handed to Piontek. The sky was growing gradually paler, a thick layer of fog filled the hollows of the plain near the river. The French soldiers saluted us and moved off into the forest. Thomas said to me: “We’ll take advantage of the fog to get round Belgarde, fast. On the other side of the Persante, between the bend in the river and the road, there’s a forest. We’ll go that way up to Körlin. Afterward, we’ll see.” I didn’t say anything, I felt as if I had no will of my own. We went back along the railroad. The explosions, in front of us and on our right, resounded in the fog, keeping pace with our advance. When the tracks crossed a road, we lurked, waited a few minutes, then crossed it running. Sometimes too we heard the clanking of gear, boxes, canteens: armed men were passing us in the fog; and we stayed down, on the lookout, waiting for them to move away, without ever knowing if they were our own men or not. To the south, behind us, heavy gunfire was starting up; in front of us, the noises were getting more distinct, but they were isolated gunshots and volleys, just a few explosions, the fighting must have been winding down. In the time it took us to reach the Persante, a wind rose up and began to scatter the fog. We moved away from the railroad and hid in the reeds to observe. The metal railroad bridge had been dynamited and lay, twisted, in the gray, turbid water of the river. We waited for about fifteen minutes observing it; the fog had almost lifted now, a cold sun glowed in the gray sky. Behind us, to the right, Belgarde was burning. The ruined bridge didn’t seem to be guarded. “If we’re careful, we could cross on the beams,” Thomas murmured. He stood up, and Piontek followed him, the Frenchmen’s submachine gun raised. From the shore, the crossing looked easy, but once we were on the bridge, the girders turned out to be treacherous, wet and slippery. We had to hang on the outside of the deck, just above the water. Thomas and Piontek crossed safely. A few meters from the shore, my reflection drew my gaze; it was blurred, deformed by the movements of the surface; I leaned over to see it more clearly, my foot slipped and I fell to meet it. Tangled in my heavy coat, I sank for a second into the cold water. My hand found a metal bar, I caught hold, hoisted myself back to the surface; Piontek, who had turned back, pulled me out onto the bank, and I lay there, dripping, coughing, furious. Thomas was laughing and his laughter added to my anger. My cap, which I had slipped into my belt before crossing, was safe; I had to take off my boots to empty the water, and Piontek helped me wring out my coat as best we could. “Hurry up,” Thomas whispered, still laughing. “We can’t stay here.” I felt my pockets, my hand encountered the book I had brought and then forgotten. The sight of the soaking, curling pages made my stomach turn. But there was nothing for it, Thomas was hurrying me, I put it back in my pocket, slung my wet coat over my shoulders and started off again.
The cold cut through my drenched clothes and I shivered, but we walked fast and that warmed me a little. Behind us, the fires in the city were crackling, thick smoke blackened the gray sky and veiled the sun. For a while, a dozen starving, panic-stricken dogs harassed us, rushing at our heels and barking furiously; Piontek had to cut a stick and lay into them to make them go away. Near the river, the ground was swampy; the snow had already melted, a few isolated patches showed the dry places. Our boots sank in up to our ankles. A long grassy dyke dusted with snow took shape, running alongside the Persante; to our right, at the foot of the embankment, the marsh thickened, then the woods began, also swampy; and soon we were stuck on this dyke, but couldn’t see anyone, neither Germans nor Russians. Others had come this way before us, though: here and there, slumped in the wood, with a foot or an arm caught in the branches, or else lying head-down on the side of the dyke, we saw a corpse, a soldier or civilian who had dragged himself there to die. The sky was clearing, the pale late-winter sun gradually scattered the grayness. Walking on the dyke was easy, we moved quickly, Belgarde had already disappeared. On the brown water of the Persante, ducks were floating, some with green heads, others black-and-white; they took off suddenly when we approached, quacking plaintively, then settling a little farther off. Across, beyond the river, stretched a large forest of tall, dark pines trees; to our right, after the little stream that separated the dyke from land, we saw mostly birch trees, with some oaks. I heard a distant buzzing: above us, very high in the light-green sky, a solitary plane was circling. The sight of this aircraft worried Thomas and he pulled us over to the little canal; we crossed it on a fallen trunk to reach the trees; but there, firm ground disappeared under water. We made our way through a little meadow covered with tall, thick grass, sodden and bent; beyond stretched out more sheets of water; there was a little padlocked hunter’s cabin, also standing in water. The snow had completely disappeared. There was no use sticking to the trees, our boots sank into the water and the mud, the wet ground was covered with rotten leaves that hid quagmires. Here and there a little island of firm land gave us courage. But farther on it became completely impossible again; the trees grew on isolated clumps or in the water itself, the strips of earth between the puddles were also flooded, wading was difficult, we had to give up and go back to the dyke. Finally it opened up onto fields, wet and covered with damp snow, but at least we could walk on them. Then we entered a woodlot of pine trees ready for cutting, thin, straight and tall with ruddy trunks. The sun filtered through the trees, scattering spots of light on the black, almost bare ground dotted with patches of snow or cold green moss. Trunks, abandoned where they fell, and broken branches blocked the way between the trees; but it was even harder to walk in the black mud, churned up by wagon wheels, on the logger’s paths that snaked through the pine grove. I was out of breath, hungry too, Thomas finally agreed to pause. Thanks to the heat given off from walking, my underwear was almost dry; I took off my tunic, boots, and pants, and stretched them out with my coat in the sun, on a cord of pine logs, carefully piled up in a square by the side of the road. I also put the Flaubert there, open, to dry out the curled paper. Then I perched on a neighboring cord, ridiculous in my long underwear; after a few minutes I was cold again, and Thomas passed me his coat, laughing. Piontek handed out some food and I ate. I was exhausted, I wanted to lie down on my coat in the weak sunlight and fall asleep. But Thomas was adamant that we reach Körlin, he still hoped to get to Kolberg the same day. I put my wet clothes back on, pocketed the Flaubert, and followed him. Soon after the wood a little hamlet appeared, nestled in the bend of the river. We watched it for a while—we’d have to make a long detour if we had to go around it; I could hear dogs barking, horses neighing, cows mooing, with that long painful sound they have when they’re not milked and their udders are swelling. But that was all. Thomas decided to move forward. There were large old farm buildings made of brick, crumbling, the broad roofs covering generous haylofts; the doors were smashed, the path strewn with overturned carts, broken furniture, torn sheets; here and there, we stepped over the corpse of a farmer or an old woman, shot point-blank; a strange little snowstorm blew through the little streets, flurries of down raised from ripped-open quilts and mattresses and carried by the wind. Thomas sent Piontek to look for food in the houses and, as we waited, translated a sign hastily painted in Russian, placed around the neck of a farmer tied high up on an oak tree, his intestines dripping from his split stomach, half torn out by dogs: YOU HAD A HOUSE, COWS, TINNED FOOD. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU WANT WITH US, PRIDUROK? The smell of the intestines made me nauseous, I was thirsty and I drank from the pump of a well that still worked. Piontek joined us: he had found bacon, onions, apples, some preserves, which we shared between us and put in our pockets; but he was pale and his jaw was trembling, he didn’t want to tell us what he’d seen in the house, and his anguished gaze shifted from the disemboweled man to the growling dogs that were drawing close through the whirlwinds of down. We left this hamlet as fast as we could. Beyond stretched large undulating fields, pale yellow and beige under the still-dry snow. The path skirted round a little stream, climbed a hill, went past a deserted prosperous farm adjacent to a wood. Then it led down to the Persante. We followed the bank, which was high above the river; on the other side of the water there were more woods. Another tributary barred our way, we had to take off our boots and socks and ford it, the water was freezing, I drank some and sprinkled my neck with it before continuing. Then more snow-covered fields and, far off on a hill to the right, the edge of a forest; right in the middle, empty, stood a gray wooden tower, for duck-hunting or maybe to shoot at crows during harvest time. Thomas wanted to cut through the fields, in front of us the forest descended to join the river, but leaving the paths wasn’t easy, the ground got treacherous, we had to pass over barbed-wire fences, so we went back to following the river when we found it again a little farther on. Two swans were drifting on the water, not at all alarmed by our presence; they paused near a little island, raised and stretched their huge necks in one long gesture, then started preening themselves. Farther, the woods began again. Here the trees were mostly pine, young ones, a forest carefully managed for cutting, open and airy. The paths made walking easier. Twice, the noise of our footsteps caused small deer to run from us, we could see them leaping through the trees. Thomas led us along various paths under the calm high vault of branches and regularly found the Persante again, our Ariadne’s thread. A path cut through a little grove of oak trees, not very tall, a dense, gray tracery of shoots and bare branches. The ground under the snow was carpeted with dead leaves, dry and brown. When I was thirsty, I went down to the Persante, but often, at the shore, the water was stagnant. We were getting close to Körlin; my legs were heavy, my back ached, but here now the paths were easy.