[European style] go home

At 8 o'clock that morning, we set off from the military camp in Kharkov.I was paired with a soldier from Berlin named Toner.This time we are in charge of delivering a truckload of canned sardines.When getting in the car, Tona jokingly said to me: "Now we don't have to worry about starving to death even if we get separated from the big team."

We continued the customary "shift change" driving method, with him driving first, and then it was my turn.I'm finally going to the place I've always dreamed of: Stalingrad.But after half a year of torture, at this time I have lost the most basic interest in these so-called honors. All I want is to survive unharmed and return to Dessau and my parents with a healthy body.I admit I'm like a passive deserter, but who wouldn't want to, except those with vested interests?

For the first hour, everything went fairly smoothly.We went up and drove for a while, and came down to shovel snow for a while. The winter here is like a long nightmare that will never end, bringing endless despair to all German soldiers.

The boom of distant artillery fire grew louder as we got closer to Stalingrad.I can imagine the scene there: the tanks on both sides are showing off their might on the road in the city, and then they are hit by an anti-tank artillery that falls from the sky, turning them into a burning ball of fire; the machine gunners and snipers on both sides are in the bunker Shooting at each other, one of the unlucky ghosts leaned out a little and was shot dead, and then he was found by the flamethrower carrying the flamethrower, and was burned to ashes in the painful scream; the flamethrower was everywhere The raging flames were sprayed out, making everyone afraid to approach him, but the good times didn't last long. The bomber roaring in the sky dropped a bomb accurately, which happened to hit his flamethrower, and the whole street was turned into a sea of ​​flames.

In short, the final outcome of all people without exception is death.Like the creepy sacrificial slogan written in the barracks: "We are born to die."

Things went from bad to worse when they reached the suburbs.Our convoy was about to drive from the Tianchou Trail to the wide road. I was about to turn a corner, but suddenly there was an unbearable noise above my head, which sounded like the sound of an airplane engine.But this is different from the engine sound of Junkers or Stuka dive bombers (①) that I usually hear. Is it...

"Get out of the car!" Before I could say it, the front and rear trucks had already reacted faster than the order.Everyone jumped out of the cab and lay down on the side of the road.As soon as I got down on the ground, the roaring Soviet bomber generously dropped hundreds of bombs on the line-shaped convoy. The snow-covered road under me undulated with the shock waves of the explosion. A bomb weighing four or five tons created a strong earthquake here.

I heard cries and cries all around me, saying "my arm is gone", it's nothing, if there is no follow-up treatment, this poor soldier will die of blood loss in an hour.

But this horrifying scream really made my heart twitch like a ball of paper.Will I get a direct hit from a bomb?Will I be overturned by the blast?Will I have arteries cut by shrapnel?No, I don't want to die, I want to live, I want to go back to the camp and erase that ominous slogan, I want to go back to the dormitory and tear up that damn suicide note, and then burn it to ashes!

Maybe I should have realized that my sanity was slowly being eaten away by all the pessimistic things.My heart was no longer firm, I became paranoid, and I always spoke bad words to those around me.I never thought I would be so evil.

The fear of death made me run forward madly when I heard the sound of an engine approaching behind me, as if a person's two legs could run through an airplane traveling at hundreds of kilometers per hour.I ran past all kinds of trucks carrying rocket launchers, infantry artillery, and machine guns in front of me, I ran past the personnel carrier that was full of soldiers with loaded guns just now, I ran past a jeep, until I was caught by a strong hand. Pull aside.

"Albert!" I felt myself fall into the arms of someone who was trying to clamp my hands to stop my struggle.The sound of his voice calling my name calmed me down a little, and those jewel-like blue eyes were looking at me worriedly, "Don't move, we'll be safe when the bombing is over."

Captain von Kagneck hugged me tightly, and this finally brought me some comfort.When I realized that I had been driven mad by this war, I aroused a strong anxiety from the bottom of my heart, so I grabbed him by the collar and asked aggressively: "I'm crazy. Will you Shoot me?"

"Don't worry, you won't. You're not crazy, you're just scared." He stroked the top of my head like last time, and said in a gentle tone, "When I first came to the front line, I Also very scared."

"Walter, where is your home?" In such a life-or-death moment, I realized that I would have to exchange some personal details with him, lest one of us die tragically while the other remains obsessed with him. I don't know.

He gave a detailed address in Berlin, which I repeated dozens of times in my head to remember.Then I said: "I live in Dessau, do you know Dessau? It's just next to Leipzig..." I introduced my hometown to him like Erich first introduced his hometown to me. , "If I die here, please apologize to my brother Helmut on my behalf. I owe him an apology."

"Okay," Captain von Kagneck agreed to my request, "but you're not going to die! We're all going to die, we're all going to live until the end of the war."

"If we can live until then, we must take a group photo to commemorate it." I laughed.In fact, I want to take a photo with everyone I know in Russia, I want to record everything that happened here in the limited length of my life, whether it is in words or pictures, what I am doing now is one of them Way.

"It's a word."

"Walter, what do your parents do?" I continued to ask.I want to know as much as possible about this young man around me. Of course, commemoration is one aspect. More importantly, I seem to have regarded him as my spiritual sustenance in this hell; The rifle on the body is as important as the gun.I thought, I might be in love with him—at such a moment, I actually want to kiss him.

"My father is also a soldier, and my mother is a housewife," he replied. "He is currently stationed in Minsk."

"If I had the chance, I would definitely visit them in Berlin," I said. "I have a twin brother who looks exactly like me, but he is so much taller than me. We both want to be in the Air Force. But only he succeeded."

"I also wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid," said Captain von Kagneck half-jokingly, "but who knows what happened afterwards? When I came to my senses, I was freezing in Russia. "

We talked to each other one by one, and finally let the haze of terror above our heads dissipate.With kindness, he saves a young soldier from the brink of collapse.Since then, my dependence on him has further deepened.I don't miss an opportunity to think about him: when I talked about Berlin with Toner, when I stroked the part of Erich's hair that was exposed as white in the photo of Erich, and even when I saw him in person. When the Don River, the first thing I thought of was his pair of blue eyes as clear as the river.

I'm sure I'm in love with him.This is a secret of mine that no one else will ever know.I can only record my feelings for him in this rough draft of my personal memoir about the war.

The author has something to say: ① Junkers and Stuka dive bombers: they are all German bombers.