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| - Soldiers’ roulette |
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Soldiers' rouletteRisking one's life needlessly, playing games with death, is an often-seen quality among young men. In an American short story entitled "Russian Roulette", two teenagers settle a dispute by alternatively putting the barrel of a revolver with a single bullet to their temple and pulling the trigger. Judging by the name of this game, taking unnecessary risks is one manifestation of the mysterious "Russian soul". In any case, it is difficult to imagine a proper German boy, with his heightened sense of self-preservation and complete absence of an inferiority complex due to his growing up in a healthy and loving family, participating in such a game. At the front, I only saw one instance of "playing with death" - there were plenty of other ways to prove one's courage, and death stalked all of us regardless. That day, a few of us from the scout platoon wound up in the trenches of our battalion's first company. During the previous night, we had escorted a field kitchen up to the front - a highly necessary task, since the night before the battalion cook got lost, or just frightened, gave all our rations to who knows what unit, and all our companies went hungry for a full day. In any case, we didn't want to get back to HQ quite yet. I found a small slit trench and took a nap - when I awoke, I saw a fellow scout, Kolja Karlov, in another trench nearby and joined him. The weather was spectacular - it was an Indian Summer - there was almost no shooting, and we passed the time chatting about our prewar lives. The trench was fairly shallow, and Kolja's head periodically poked over the trench lip. Suddenly, his hat flew off his head. At first, we didn't understand why, but when he picked the hat up we saw a small entry hole at the front where the red star usually goes - and a big exit hole in the back. Strangely, Kolja's head wasn't even scratch. Some conscientious sniper was clearly intent on doing his duty rather than just enjoy the weather. We laughed about it a bit and took heart in Kolja's luck (later on that night, when it finally hit Kolja how close he'd been to getting killed, he drank himself silly and proudly showed his hat off to everyone in the platoon - L.Veger). While still laughing, I looked around and saw some young soldiers from Siberia in a neighboring trench. They had come in as replacements a few days ago. And then we saw something that made us stop laughing - one of the Siberians climbed out of the trench, stood up to full height, aimed his rifle towards the German trenches and took a shot. At the front this was about as unusual as walking down some street in peacetime and seeing a guy crawl forward on all fours. Anywhere near the frontline, with its constantly zipping bullets and the occasional shrapnel, the norm was sitting down in the trench, crawling along the ground or hunched darting from cover to cover. To stand up to one's full height over the trench lip was plainly insane. For a moment, I thought that he'd seen some important target and took a shot, and looked over the trench lip - but there was nothing. The German trenches were about half a kilometer away, and there didn't seem to be anything special going on there. After taking his shot, the Siberian jumped down into the trench. Kolja and eye looked at each other in wonder, then continued with our chat. Just then, another Siberian jumped out of the trench, stood up, fired without aiming, reloaded, fired again and jumped down. We finally realized that the guys were just bored, and decided to play a game of sorts - who can face down enemy bullets the longest. While I was already something of a veteran, I had never seen this particular "game" before that day. It must be said that most new recruits arriving at the front typically go through three stages. At first, they are recklessly brave, unable to understand the danger they're in; in their youthful egocentrism, each one of them just can't understand how a bullet can kill him, his unique self. After their first attack, when they see their comrades fall to bullets and shells, and when their coats are holed with stray shrapnel, they enter stage two - an absolute panic. A German tank can be two kilometers away, but the panicking soldier is already jumping out of his trench and running as fast as he can back towards the safety of rear areas. And only after stage two do some soldiers enter stage three, that of cold calculation, when a soldier can tell real from imagined danger, suppress his fear, and commit acts of courage when there are no other viable courses of action, without losing his standing with his comrades. The first Siberian now leaped out of the trench again, quickly fired off three shots without aiming and jumped back down. As he fired his third shot, a few bullets whistled by - the Germans joined the game. The two competitors were pretty lucky up to this point - the weather and the bright sun were very relaxing to both ourselves and to the Germans, and there weren't many shooters on their side. The second Siberian began reloading his rifle, getting ready to jump out of the trench again. Kolja and I offered him some advice, as loyal "fans". - Wait, don't rush it, wait them out for a little bit, - shouted Kolja, remembering the sniper that took off his hat, - let the Germans relax and lower their rifles. Finally, the Siberian leaped out of the trench. With lightning speed he worked his bolt action rifle for shot after shot. He fired the fourth shot while already jumping back into the trench. Even we saw how white his face got, and decided that, perhaps, the game could now end. But no, the first Siberian now began reloading his own weapon. - They'll kill him, - said Kolja. - Not necessarily, - I replied, more in the spirit of starting an argument than anything else, - Well, maybe after the fourth shot. - You wanna bet they'll get him earlier, - asked Kolja. - Done. - Hey, climb out from a different spot, - I yelled to the Siberian. He gave me a blank stare, but moved over to the other end of the trench regardless. You could tell he's torn between pride and self-preservation. His facial expression alternated between resolve and confusion. He fired his fifth shot while falling back into the trench. Kolja and I ran over to him. There was a small hole in his hat, right below the place where the red star usually goes. The next day, Kolja Karlov, as member of the battalion's Party committee, sent off a death notice with the words: "died a brave death". [Common phrasing on Red Army's death notices - Transl.]
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