Yashka · Part II · Chapter 8 (1/3)

VIII

Wounded and Paralysed

Towards winter we were moved to a place called Zelenoye Polie. There I was placed in command of twelve stretcher-bearers and served in the capacity of medical assistant for six weeks, during which I had charge of the sending of men who were ill to the hospital and of granting a few days’ rest from duty to those who needed it.

Our positions ran through an abandoned country estate. The house lay between the lines. We were on the top of the hill, while the Germans occupied the low ground. We could, therefore, observe their movements and they, in turn, could watch us. If any on either side raised his head he became the mark of some sniper.

It was in this place that our men fell victims to a superior officer’s treason. There had been plenty of rumours in the trenches of pro-German officials in the army and at Court. We had our suspicions, too, and now they were confirmed in a shocking manner.

General Walter paid a visit to the front line. He was known to be of German blood, and his harsh treatment of the soldiers won for him the cordial hatred of the rank and file. The General, accompanied by a considerable suite of officers and men, exposed himself completely on his tour of inspection of our trenches without attracting a single enemy bullet! It was unthinkable to us who had to crawl on our bellies to obtain some water. And here was this General in open view of the enemy and yet they preserved this strange silence.

The General acted in an odd fashion. He would stop at points where the barbed wire was torn open or where the fortifications were weak and wipe his face with his handkerchief. There was a general murmur among the men. The word “treason!” was uttered by many lips in suppressed tones. The officers were indignant and called the General’s attention to the unnecessary danger to which he exposed himself. But the General ignored their warnings, remarking, “Nitchevo!” (That’s nothing).

The discipline was so rigorous that no one dared to argue the matter with the General. The officers cursed when he left. The men muttered:

“He is selling us to the enemy!”

Half an hour after his departure the Germans opened a tremendous fire. It was particularly directed against those points at which the General had stopped, reducing their faulty defences to ruins. We thought at first that the enemy intended to launch an offensive, but our expectations were not realized. He merely continued his violent bombardment, wounding and burying alive hundreds of men. The cries of the men were such that the work of rescue could not be delayed. While the shelling was still going on I took charge and dressed some hundred and fifty wounds. If General Walter had appeared in our midst at that moment the men would never have let him get away alive, so intense was their feeling.

For two weeks we worked at the reconstruction of our demolished trenches and altogether extracted about five hundred corpses. I was recommended for and received a gold medal of the 2nd Degree for “saving wounded from the trenches under violent fire.” Usually a medical assistant received a medal of the 4th Degree, but I was given one of the 2nd Degree because of the special conditions under which I had done my work.

We were then relieved for a month and sent ten miles to the rear, to the village of Senky, on a stream called Uzlianka. An artillery base was located there, and when we finally reached our destination, our life was easier. But getting there was no easy task, for the road was in a frightful condition. We were utterly exhausted, and most of us fell asleep without even eating the supper that had been prepared for us.

There was no work for a medical assistant in the rear, and besides my arm had fully recovered, so I applied to the Commander for permission to return to the ranks. He granted it, promoting me to the rank of Corporal, which placed me in charge of eleven men.

Here I received two letters, one from Yasha, in reply to mine, written from Yakutsk, in which I spoke of returning to him at the conclusion of the war. I sent a letter in answer to his repeating my promise, on condition that he would change his behaviour towards me and treat me with consideration and love. The other letter was from home. My mother wanted me to come back, telling me of her hardships and sufferings.

It was October. This month, spent at the artillery base, was a merry one. We were billeted in the village huts, and engaged almost daily in sports and games. It was here that I was first taught how to sign my name and copy the alphabet. I had learned to read previously, Yasha having been my first teacher. The literature that was allowed to circulate at the front was largely made up of lurid detective stories, and the name of “Nick Carter” was not unfamiliar even to me.

There were other amusements, also. I remember one day, during a downpour of rain, I sought shelter in a barn, where I found about forty officers and men, who were also sheltering there from the rain. The owner of the barn, a middle-aged baba, was there with her cow. I was in a mischievous mood and began to flirt with her, to the general merriment of the men. I paid her some flattering compliments and declared that she had captivated me. The woman did not recognize my sex and professed to be insulted. Encouraged by the uproar of the men, I persisted in my advances, and finally made an attempt to kiss her. The baba, infuriated by the laughter of the soldiers, seized a large piece of firewood, and with curses threatened me and the men.

“Get out of here, you tormentors of a poor baba!” she cried.

I did not want to provoke a fight and cried to her:

“Why, you foolish woman, I am a peasant girl myself.”

This only further inflamed our hostess. She took it for more ridicule and became more menacing. The officers and soldiers interfered, trying to persuade her of the truth of my words, as none of us wanted to be put out into the rain. However, it required more than words to convince her, so I was compelled to unbutton my coat.

“Holy Jesus!” the woman crossed herself. “A baba, indeed.” And immediately her heart softened, and her tone changed into one of tenderness. She burst into tears. Her husband and son were in the army, she told me, and she hadn’t heard from them for a long time. She gathered me into her arms, and gave me food and some milk, inquiring about my mother and mourning over her lot. We parted affectionately, and she followed me with her blessings.

It was snowing when we returned to the front line. Our position was now at Ferdinandovi Nos, between Lake Naroch and Baranovitchi. The first night the Commander of the Company issued a call for thirty volunteers to go scouting and investigate the strength and position of the enemy. I was among the thirty.

We started out in single file, moving forward stealthily and as noiselessly as possible. We passed by some woods, in which an enemy patrol had hidden upon hearing the crackling of the snow beneath some of our soldiers’ boots. We crawled on to the enemy trenches and lay in front of his barbed wire. Our chests were flattened against the snowdrifts. We were rather uneasy, as our presence seemed strangely unnoticed. Our officer, Lieutenant Borbov, a former school teacher, but a fighting man of the first order, suddenly caught a noise in our rear.

“There is something happening,” he whispered to us.

We strained our ears, but we had scarcely had time to look round when we found ourselves surrounded by an enemy force, larger than our own. It was too late to shoot. We resorted to our bayonets, and it was a brief but savage fight.

I found myself confronted by a German, who towered far above me. There was not an instant to lose. Life or death hung in the balance.

I rushed at the German before he had time to move and ran him through the stomach with the bayonet. The bayonet stuck, and the man fell. A stream of blood gushed forth. I made an effort to pull out the bayonet, but failed. It was the first man that I had bayoneted; and it all happened with lightning-speed.

I fled toward our trenches, pursued by a German, falling several times, but always rising again and pressing on. Our wire entanglements were in a zigzag, and I had difficulty in finding our positions. My situation was getting critical, when I discovered that I had some hand grenades with me. I threw them at my pursuer, falling to the ground to avoid the shock of the explosion, and at length I reached our trenches.

Only ten of our party of thirty returned. The Commander thanked me personally, expressing his astonishment that I should have been able to bayonet a German. Deep in my soul I also wondered.

The year 1915 was nearing its end. The winter was severe, and life in the trenches almost unbearable. Death was a welcome visitor. Even more welcome was a wound that enabled one to be sent to hospital. There were many cases of men snowed under and frozen to death. There were many more cases of frozen feet that had to be amputated. Our equipment was getting very deficient. Our supply organization was already breaking down. It was difficult to replace a worn pair of boots. Not infrequently something went wrong in the kitchen, and we were forced to suffer hunger as well as cold. But we were patient, like true children of Mother Russia. It was dreadfully monotonous, this inactivity, this mere holding of frozen ditches. We longed for battles, for one mighty battle, to win the victory and end the war.

One bitter night I was detailed to a listening post with three men. My boots were worn out. One has to keep absolutely still while on such duty. A movement may mean death. So there we lay on the white ground, exposed to the attacks of King Frost. He went about his work without delay, and thoroughly. My right foot was undergoing strange sensations. It began to freeze. I longed to sit up and rub it. But sitting up was not to be thought of. Was that a noise? I ceased to trouble about my foot; I had to strain all my nerves to catch that peculiar sound. Or was it a mere freak of the wind? My foot grew numb. It was going to sleep.

“Holy Mother, what’s to be done?” I thought to myself. “My right foot is gone. The feet of the other three men are freezing, too. They just whispered that to me. If only the Commander would relieve us now! But the two hours are not yet up.”

Suddenly we perceived two figures in white crawling toward us, Germans provided with appropriate costumes for a deadly mission. We fired, and they replied. A bullet pierced my coat, just scratching the skin. Then everything quieted down again; and we were soon relieved. I had barely strength to reach my trench. There, I fell exhausted, crying, “My foot! my foot!”

I was taken to the hospital, and there the horrible condition of my foot was revealed. It was as white as snow, covered with frost. The pains were agonizing, but nothing terrified me as much as the physician’s talk of the probable necessity of amputating it. But I made a stubborn fight, and I saved my right limb. The doctors soon put me on the road to recovery, and by persistent care succeeded in restoring my foot to its normal state.

The opening of the year 1916 found me still in hospital. Almost immediately upon my discharge our Company was sent to the rear for a month’s rest in Beloye, a village some distance behind the fighting line. We were billeted with the peasants in their homes; and we enjoyed the use of a bathhouse and slept on the peasants’ ovens, in true homely fashion. We even had the opportunity of seeing moving pictures, the apparatus being carried from base to base on a motor belonging to the Union of Zemstvos. We also established our own theatre and acted a play, written by one of our artillery officers. There were two women characters in the drama, and I was chosen for the leading role. The other feminine role was played by a young officer. It was with great reluctance that I consented to take the part, and only after the urgent appeals of the Commander. I did not believe myself capable of acting, and even the thunderous applause that I won on that occasion has not changed my belief.

At Beloye many of the soldiers and officers were visited by their wives. I made many acquaintances there and some fast friendships. One of the latter was with the wife of a stretcher-bearer with whom I had worked. She was a young, pretty and very lovable woman, and her husband adored her. When our month’s rest was drawing to an end and the order came for the women to leave, the stretcher-bearer borrowed the Commander’s horses in order to drive his wife to the station. On his way back he had an apoplectic stroke and died immediately. He received a military funeral, and I made a wreath and placed it on his coffin.

As we lowered his coffin into the grave the thought inevitably suggested itself to me whether I would be buried like this or my body lost and blown to the winds in No Man’s Land. The same thought must have passed through several minds.

Another friend, made at the same time, was the wife of Lieutenant Bobrov, the former school teacher. Both of them helped me to learn to write and improve my reading. The peasant women of the locality were so poor and ignorant that I devoted part of my time to aiding them. Many of them were suffering from minor ailments that were in need of attention. One evening I was even called to attend a woman in childbirth, this being my first experience in midwifery. Another time I was asked to visit a very bad case of fever.

Then came the trenches again. Again intense cold, again unceasing watchfulness and irritating inactivity. But the air was full of expectation. As the winter drew to its close, rumours of a gigantic spring offensive grew more and more insistent. Surely the war cannot end without a general battle, the men argued. And when, towards the end of February, we were again taken for a two-weeks’ rest, it became clear that we were to be prepared for an offensive. We received new outfits and equipment. On March the 5th the Commander of the Regiment addressed us. He spoke of the coming battle and appealed to us to be brave and win a great victory. He told us that the enemy’s defences were very strong and that it would require a mighty effort to overcome them.

Then we started for the front. The slush and mud were unimaginable. We walked deep in water, mixed with ice. On the road we met many wounded being carried to the hospital. We also passed by a cemetery where the soldiers who had fallen in our lines were being buried in one huge grave. We were kept in the rear for the night, as reserves, and were told to await orders tomorrow to proceed to the trenches.

March the 6th began with an unprecedented bombardment on our side. The Germans replied with equal violence, and the earth fairly shook. The cannonade lasted all day. Then an order came for us to form ranks and march into the trenches. We knew that it meant that we were to take part in the offensive.

Lieutenant Bobrov came up to me unexpectedly with these words:

“Yashka, take this and deliver it to my wife after the attack. I have had a presentiment for three days that I shall not survive this battle.” He handed me a letter and a ring.

“But, Lieutenant,” I objected, though I knew that protestations were of no avail at such a moment, “you are mistaken so. It will not happen. Presentiments are deceiving.”

He grimly shook his head and pressed my hand.

“Not this one, Yashka,” he said.

We were in the trenches already, under a veritable hail of shells. There were dead and dying in our midst. Waist-deep in water we crouched, praying to God. Suddenly a gas wave came in our direction. It caught some without their masks, and for them there was no escape. I, myself, narrowly missed this horrible death. My lips contracted and my eyes watered and burned for three weeks afterward.