A Time to Love and a Time to Die, Page 2

  "He won't feel it now," Immermann said.

  "Shut your trap. Here lies a fallen German officer, you Communist!"

  The face emerged from the snow. It was wet and made a strange impression with the hollows of the eyes still filled with snow: as though a sculptor had left a mask unfinished and blind. A gold tooth gleamed between the blue lips.

  "I can't identify him," Muecke said.

  "It must be him. We didn't lose any other officer here that time."

  "Wipe out his eyes."

  Graeber hesitated an instant. Then he cautiously wiped the snow away with his glove. "It's him," he said.

  Muecke became excited. He took command himself. Since an officer was in question a higher rank seemed necessary. "Lift him! Hirschland and Sauer take the legs, Steinbrenner and Berning the arms. Graeber, take care of his head! Come on, all together—one, two, pull!"

  The body moved. "Once more. One, two, lift!"

  The body moved again. From under it out of the snow came a hollow sigh as the air rushed in.

  "Sergeant! The foot's come off!" Hirschland shouted.

  It was the boot. It had come half off. The flesh of the foot had rotted in the melting snow and was giving way. "Let go! Let him down!" Muecke shouted. It was too late. The body jerked loose and Hirschland held the boot in his hand.

  "Is the foot inside?" Immermann asked.

  "Put the boot down and go on shoveling," Muecke shouted to Hirschland. "How was anyone to know he was already so soft? And you, Immermann, shut up! Show some respect for the dead!"

  Immermann looked at Muecke in amazement, but he kept quiet.

  A few minutes later they had finished shoveling the snow away from around the body. In the wet uniform they found a wallet with papers. The handwriting had run but was still legible. Graeber had been right: it was Lieutenant Reicke, who had been a platoon leader in the company during the fall.

  "We must report this at once," Muecke said. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

  He went over to the house where the company commander lived. It was the only one that was still in some degree habitable; before the Revolution it had probably belonged to the village priest. Rahe was sitting in the big living room. Muecke stared spitefully at the broad Russian oven in which a fire was burning. On the oven bench Rahe's sheepdog was lying asleep. Muecke made his report and Rahe went out with him.

  He looked down for a while at Reicke. "Shut his eyes," he said then.

  "That can't be done, sir," Graeber answered. "The lids are too tender. They would tear."

  Rahe looked over at the shell-torn church. "Take him over and put him in there for the time being. Have we a coffin?"

  "The coffins were left behind," Muecke reported. "We had a few for special occasions. The Russians have them now. I hope they'll have use for them!"

  Steinbrenner laughed. Rahe did not laugh. "Can we make one?"

  "It would take too long, sir," Graeber said. "The body's very soft already. Besides, it's not likely there are any suitable boards in the town."

  Rahe nodded. "Lay him on a strip of canvas. We'll bury him in that. Hack out a grave and make a cross."

  Graeber, Sauer, Immermann, and Berning carried the sagging body over to the church. Hirschland followed uncertainly with the boot with a piece of foot still in it.

  "Sergeant Muecke!" Rahe said.

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Four captured guerrillas are being sent here today. They are to be shot early tomorrow morning. Our company has received orders to do it. Ask your section for volunteers. If you don't get them the master sergeant will select names."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Heaven knows why it has to be us. Oh well, in all this confusion—"

  "I volunteer," Steinbrenner said.

  "Good." Rahe's face was expressionless. He stumped back over the pathway shoveled in the snow. Back to his oven, Muecke thought. The dishclout! What does shooting a few guerrillas amount to? As though they hadn't picked off hundreds of our comrades!.

  "If the Russians come in time they can dig the grave for Reicke too," Steinbrenner said. "Then there won't be any work for us. Get it all done at once. What do you say, Muecke?"

  "It's all right with me!" Muecke's stomach was bitter. That schoolmaster, he thought. Thin, overgrown, a long lathe with horn-rimmed glasses. Lieutenant from the time of the first war. Never promoted in this one. Brave all right, who wasn't? But not a leader by nature. "What do you think of Rahe?" he asked Steinbrenner.

  Steinbrenner looked at him uncomprehendingly. "He's our company commander, isn't he?"

  "Certainly, but what else?"

  "Else? What do you mean?"

  "Nothing," Muecke replied crossly.

  "Deep enough?" asked the oldest Russian.

  He was a man of about seventy with a dirty white beard and very blue eyes, and he spoke broken German.

  "Shut up, Bolshevik. Speak only when you're spoken to," Steinbrenner replied. He was in •fine spirits. His eyes followed the woman who was one of the guerrillas. She was young and strong.

  "Deeper," Graeber said. He, together with Steinbrenner and Sauer, was supervising the prisoners.

  "For us?" the Russian asked.

  Steinbrenner sprang down quickly, lightly, and hit him hard in the face with the flat of his hand. "I told you, grandfather, to hold your tongue. What do you think this is? A country fair?"

  He smiled. There was no malice in his face. It was simply filled with the satisfaction of a child pulling the wings off a

  fly.

  "No, this grave is not for you," Graeber said.

  The Russian did not move. He stood still and looked at Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner glanced back. His face suddenly changed. It became tense and watchful. He thought the Russian was going to attack him and he was waiting for the first move. It would have made no difference to anyone if he had shot him then and there; the man had been condemned to death anyway and no one would question very closely whether or not it had been a case of self-defense. But for

  Steinbrenner it was not the same. Graeber could not tell whether it was a kind of sport for him to provoke the Russian so far that he would forget himself for a moment, or whether he still possessed a remnant of that strange pedantry which seeks through some subterfuge always to appear legal when committing murder. Both existed. And both at the same time. Graeber had seen it often enough.

  The Russian did not move. Blood ran out of his nose into his beard. Graeber considered for a moment what he would do in the same situation—whether he would throw himself on the other and risk instant death for the satisfaction of returning the blow, or accept anything in order to gain the few more hours, the one night of life. He did not know.

  The Russian bent slowly and lifted the pick. Steinbrenner took a step backward. He was ready to shoot. But the Russian did not straighten up again. He resumed his hacking at the bottom of the hole. Steinbrenner grinned. "Lie down there," he said.

  The Russian put the pick aside and laid himself in the trench. He lay there, quietly. A few pieces of snow fell on him as Steinbrenner stepped over the grave. "Is it long enough?" he asked Graeber.

  "Yes. Reicke wasn't tall."

  The Russian was looking upward. His eyes were wide open. The blue of the sky seemed to be reflected in them. The white, hairs of the beard around his mouth stirred with his breath. Steinbrenner let him lie there for a while. Then he said, "Out!"

  The Russian climbed out. Wet earth clung to his coat. "So," Steinbrenner said, and glanced at the woman. "Now we'll go and dig your own graves. They don't need to be so deep. It makes no difference if the foxes eat you next summer."

  It was early morning. A pale red band lay along the horizon. The snow crackled; it had frozen again during the night. The open graves were very black. "Damn it," Sauer said. "The things they load on us. Why do we have to do this? Why not the S.D.? After all, they're specialists in shooting people. Why us? This is the third time. We're supposed to be respectable soldiers."

  Grae
ber held his rifle loosely in his hand. The steel was very cold. He put on bis glove. "The S.D. keep busy farther back."

  "Right. They don't come this near the front. Wasn't Stein-brenner with the S.D. earlier?"

  "I think he was in a concentration camp. Block warden or something like that."

  The others came up. Steinbrenner was the only one fully awake and rested. His skin had the rosy glow of a child's. "Listen," he said. "There's that cow in the bunch. Leave her for me."

  "How do you mean for you?" asked Sauer. 'There's not enough time for you to get her pregnant. You ought to have tried sooner."

  "That's just what he did," Immermann said. "Who told you that?" Steinbrenner asked. "The International?"

  "And she wouldn't let him near her." Steinbrenner turned around angrily. "You're mighty sly, aren't you? If I had wanted to have the red cow I'd have had her."

  "Maybe not."

  "Oh, cut the jawing." Sauer bit off a chew of tobacco. "If he means he wants to shoot her all by himself he's welcome as far as I'm concerned. I won't fight him for that." "Nor 1," Graeber declared.

  The others said nothing. It grew lighter. Hirschland looked at his watch. "Aren't things going fast enough for you, Isaac?" Steinbrenner asked. "Be thankful you've been picked out for this. It's just the thing to cure your Jewish tearfulness. Shooting—" he spat, "much too good for this gang! Ammunition wasted for that! They should be hanged. Like everywhere else."

  "Where?" Sauer looked around. "You see any trees? Or shall we build a gallows? And with what?" "There they are," Graeber said.

  Muecke appeared with the four Russians. Two soldiers marched in front of them and two behind. The old Russian came first, after him the woman and then the two younger men. The four arranged themselves, without being told to, in a row in front of the graves. The woman glanced down before she turned around. She was wearing a red woolen skirt.

  Lieutenant Mueller of the first platoon came out of the company commander's house. He was Rahe's representative at the execution. It was laughable, but formalities were still for the most part strictly carried out. Everyone knew that the four Russians might be guerrillas and then again might not; they had been formally tried and condemned without ever having any real chance. What had there been to find out? . They had been charged with possessing weapons. Now they were being shot with due formality and in the presence of an officer. As if it mattered to them one way or the other.

  Lieutenant Mueller was twenty-one years old and had been assigned to the company six weeks before. He examined the condemned and then read the sentence.

  "The cow's for me," Steinbrenner whispered.

  Graeber looked at the woman. She stood calmly in her red skirt in front of the grave. She was strong and young and healthy and made to bear children. She did not understand , what Mueller was reading, but she knew it was her death sentence. She knew that in a few minutes the life that pulsed strong and healthy through her veins would cease forever— but she stood there calmly as if it were nothing and she were only a little chilly in the cold morning air.

  Graeber saw that Muecke was officiously whispering to Mueller. Mueller glanced up. "Can't that be done afterward?"

  "It's better this way, sir. Simpler."

  "All right, arrange it as you like."

  Muecke stepped forward. "Tell that one over there to take off his shoes," he said to the old Russian who understood German, and pointed at one of the younger prisoners.

  The old man told the other. He spoke in a low, almost singsong tone. The other man, a gangling fellow, at first did not understand. "Come on," Muecke growled. "Shoes! Take off your shoes!"

  The old man repeated what he had said before. The younger one understood and, like someone who had neglected his duty, hastened to take off his shoes as quickly as possible. He wobbled, standing on one foot while he drew the shoe off the other. Why is he rushing so? Graeber thought. So that he can die a minute sooner? The man took his shoes in one hand and offered them obsequiously to Muecke. They were good shoes. Muecke snorted an order and pointed to one side. The man placed the shoes there and then stepped back into line. He stood in dirty foot bandages on the snow. His yellow toes protruded from the wrappings and he kept curling them in embarrassment.

  Muecke inspected the others. He found that the woman had a pair of thick fur gloves and ordered her to lay them beside the shoes. The red skirt held his attention for a moment. It was untorn and of good material. Steinbrenner grinned surreptitiously, but Muecke did not tell the woman to take it off. Either he was afraid that Rahe might be watching the execution from his window or he did not know what could be done with the skirt. He stepped back.

  The woman said something very rapidly in Russian. "Ask her what more she wants," Lieutenant Mueller said. He was pale. This was his first execution.

  Muecke questioned the old Russian.

  "She doesn't want anything. She is just cursing you."

  "What?" shouted Mueller who had not understood any of it.

  "She is cursing you," the Russian said louder. "She is cursing you and all Germans who stand on Russian soil! She is cursing your children! She hopes that her children will some day shoot down your children just as you are now shooting her down."

  "What impertinence!" Muecke was staring at the woman.

  "She has two children," said the old man. "And I have three sons."

  "That's enough, Muecke!" Mueller shouted nervously. "We're not chaplains. Attention!"

  The group of soldiers came to attention. Graeber took hold of his rifle. He had taken off his glove again. The cold steel seemed to suck at his thumb and index finger. Beside him stood Hirschland. He was yellow but he stood firm. Graeber decided to aim at the Russian farthest to the left. In the beginning, when he had been commanded to take part in executions, he had shot into the air, but that was past. Doing it was no favor to those who were to be shot. Others had had the same idea and there had been times when almost everyone had intentionally missed the mark. The shooting had to be repeated and so the prisoners were executed twice. Once, to be sure, a woman had thrown herself on her knees after not being hit and had thanked them with tears for the minute or two of life she had gained. He didn't like to think about that woman. Anyhow, that sort of thing did not happen any more.

  "Take aim!"

  Over his sight Graeber saw the old Russian with the beard and blue eyes. The gun sight cut his face in two. Graeber lowered it. The last time he had shot away someone's lower jaw. The breast was safer. He saw that the barrel of Hirschland's rifle was raised and that he intended to shoot over their heads. "Muecke's watching you. Aim lower. Side-wise!" he murmured. Hirschland lowered the barrel. "Fire!" came the command,

  The Russian seemed to rise and come toward Graeber. He swelled out like a man seen in a convex mirror in some fun house at a country fair. He swelled out and then fell backward.

  The old man had been hurled half in and half out of the qrave. His feet protruded from it. The two other men had sunk down where they stood. The one without shoes had thrown up his hands at the last minute to protect his face. One hand hung like a rag from the tendons. None of the'Russians had had their hands tied or their eyes bandaged. It had been forgotten.

  The woman had fallen forward. She was not dead. She had ' propped herself on her hands and was staring with lifted face at the group of soldiers. Steinbrenner wore a satisfied expression. No one else had aimed at her. She had been shot in the stomach. Steinbrenner was a good marksman.

  The old Russian struck at something from the grave; then he was still. Only the woman still lay propped up there. She stared out of her broad face at the soldiers and hissed. The old Russian was dead and now no one could translate what she was saying. She lay there with her arms braced like a great bright frog that could go no farther and she hissed without turning her eyes aside for an instant.

  She seemed hardly to notice as Muecke approached disgustedly from the side. She hissed and hissed and only at the last moment did she see the revol
ver. She thrust her head to one side and bit Muecke in the hand. Muecke cursed and with a downward blow of his left hand knocked her lower jaw loose. As the teeth let go he shot her in the nape of the neck.

  "Pamned bad marksmanship!" Mueller growled. "Don't you know how to aim?"

  "It was Hirschland, sir," Steinbrenner reported.

  "It was not Hirschland," Graeber said.

  "Quiet!" Muecke shouted. "Wait till you're asked!"

  He glanced over at Mueller. Mueller was very pale and stood without moving. Muecke bent over the other Russians. He put his revolver behind the ear of one of the younger men and fired. The head jerked and lay still. Muecke put his revolver back and looked at his hand. He took out a handkerchief and wrapped it.