Forgotten Soldier Read Free

lungfuls of cool forest air. A marvelous sense of life flows through my veins, and I make no effort to understand why we are all so splendidly well after such intense daily exertions. We run into a company quartered about six miles from us in a village with a name something like Cremenstovsk, and salute as we pass, we with heads left, they with heads right. Without any dispersal or change of position in the ranks we shift to the double, to ordinary marching pace, to the double again. When we get back to the castle we see a crowd of new faces.
    All the sergeant-instructors have jumped on these greenhorns. We remain standing by the entrance. After an hour, as no one has done anything about us, we stack our weapons, and squat on the courtyard pavement.
    I talk to a Lorrainer, half in French, half in German, and the morning goes by. The lunch bell rings, and we put away our guns before going into the dining hall.
    It is now afternoon. Still no duties, no maneuvers. We can hardly believe it. There is no question of going down to the courtyard; they would only send us off on fatigue. With one accord, we slip up to the third floor, where there are more dormitories. We see a ladder which takes us up to the attic, and then to the roof. The sun is beating down onto the massive slates. We stretch out full length, and brace our heels against the gutter so that we won't roll into the courtyard.
    The day is magnificent. On the roof it is almost painfully hot, and before long we are all stripped to the waist, as if on a beach. However, after a while the heat becomes disagreeable, and like many others I abandon my roost. Up to that moment though, it is quite amusing to look down at the frenzied maneuvers of the greenhorns under a torrent of abuse.
    I find myself back in the courtyard in the company of that damned Lorrainer, who never talks about anything but his medical studies. As I am supposed to work as a mechanic with my father, I find all his chatter quite boring. What's the point of thinking about a civilian future when you've just gone into the army?
    There are still no orders for us. I walk about quite freely, and for the first time observe the details of this massive edifice. Everything about it is on a colossal scale. The smallest staircase is at least eighteen feet wide, and the whole mass is so imposing that one almost forgets its sinister character.
    Beyond the entry and parallel to it rise the battlements. Another block composed of four towers like the towers of the porch completes the group of buildings. The entire mass both pleases and impresses me, and I feel in this Wagnerian decor a sense of almost invincible power. The horizon touches the vast dark-green forest on all sides.
    The principal characteristic of the days which follow is a kind of robust pleasure. I learn to drive, first a big motorcycle; then a VW, and then a steiner. * (Military automobile, similar to a jeep) I grow so confident that driving these machines seems like child's play, and I am able to manage them under any circumstances. There are fifteen of us passing around orders among ourselves without submitting to any authority, and we enjoy ourselves, like the boys we are.
    October 10. The weather is still beautiful, but this morning the temperature is only twenty-five degrees. For the whole day we practice handling a small tank, driving it up some pretty steep slopes. There are fifteen of us aboard a vehicle intended for eight, which is quite uncomfortable. We manage to stay inside only by performing some extraordinary acrobatic contortions. We laugh all day, and by evening any one of us can handle the machine. We are dead tired and ache as if we'd all been given a good thrashing.
    The next day, as we fling ourselves headlong into exercise, without calculating the cost of energy, and to counteract the cold, Laus calls out: "Sajer!"
    I step forward.
    "Lieutenant Starfe needs a Panzer driver, and as you particularly distinguished yourself yesterday ... go