Once again, I slept poorly; that seemed to be the rule in Pereyaslav. The men grunted and snored; as soon as I dozed off, the teeth-grinding of the little Waffen-SS cut into my sleep and pulled me out of it abruptly. In this groggy drowsiness, Ott’s face in the water and the skull of the Russian soldier became confused: Ott, lying in the puddle, opened his mouth wide and stuck his tongue out at me, a thick, pink, fresh tongue, as if he were inviting me to kiss him. I awoke anxious, tired. Over breakfast, once again I was overcome with coughing, then with violent retching; I slipped out to an empty hallway, but nothing came up. When I went back to the table, Häfner was waiting for me with a teletype: “Kharkov has just fallen, Hauptsturmführer. The Standartenführer is waiting for you in Poltava.”—“In Poltava?” I pointed to the sodden windows. “He has to be kidding. How does he expect me to get there?”—“The trains are still running, from Kiev to Poltava. When the partisans don’t derail them. There’s a Rollbahn convoy that’s leaving for Yagotin; I called the division, they said they’ll take you. Yagotin is on the railroad, so from there you can get a train.” Häfner was truly an efficient officer. “Fine, I’ll go tell my driver.”—“No, your driver will stay here. That Admiral will never get as far as Yagotin. You’ll travel with the Rollbahn in one of their trucks. I’ll send the driver with the car back to Kiev when it’s possible.”—“Fine.”—“The convoy leaves at noon. I’ll give you some dispatches for the Standartenführer, including the report about Ott’s death.”—“Fine.” I went to get my kit ready. Then I sat down at a table and wrote a letter to Thomas, straightforwardly describing the previous day’s incident: You discuss this with the Brigadeführer, since I know Blobel won’t do anything, aside from covering himself. We have to learn from this, otherwise it might happen again. After I finished the letter, I sealed it in an envelope and put it aside. Then I went to find Ries. “Tell me, Ries, your little child-soldier, there, the one who grates his teeth. What’s his name?”—“You mean Hanika? Franz Hanika. The one I showed you?”—“Yes, him. Can you give him to me?” He raised his eyebrows, taken aback. “Give him to you? Why?”—“I’m leaving my driver here; I left my orderly in Kiev, so I need another one. And in Kharkov I can have him put up in a separate room, that way he won’t bother anyone anymore.” Ries seemed delighted: “Listen, Hauptsturmführer, if you’re serious…I’m all for it. I’ll go ask the Obersturmführer; I don’t think he’ll have any objections.”—“Fine. I’ll go tell this Hanika.” I found him in the mess, where he was scouring pots. “Hanika!” He stood at attention and I saw he had a bruise on one cheek. “Yes?”—“I’m leaving for Poltava and then Kharkov. I need an orderly. Do you want to come?” His strained face lit up: “With you?”—“Yes. Your work won’t change much, but at least you won’t have the others on your back.” He looked radiant, like a child who has just received an unexpected present. “Go get your things ready,” I said to him.
The journey by truck to Yagotin remains for me a long wandering, an endless foundering. The men spent more time outside the trucks pushing than in the cabs. But as terrible as the mud was, the idea of what would come later scared them even more. “We have nothing, Herr Hauptsturmführer, you understand? Nothing,” a Feldwebel explained to me. “No warm underclothes, no sweaters, no winter coats, no antifreeze, nothing. The Reds are ready for winter, though.”—“They’re men like us. They’ll be cold too.”—“It’s not that. Cold can be dealt with. But you have to be equipped, and they are. And even if they aren’t, they’ll be able to improvise. They’ve lived with it all their lives.” He cited a striking example he had from one of his Hiwis: in the Red Army, the men received boots two sizes bigger than their actual foot size. “With the frost, the feet swell, and then it leaves more room to fill them with straw and newspaper. We have boots that are just at the right size. Half the men are going to end up in the infirmary with their toes amputated.”
