War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 343

Chapter 10

T

he horrific winter passed, and Johann and Helmut remained alive. How, they did not know. Working every day, all day, with next to no food, despicable sanitary conditions and the ever-present cold.

The spring sunshine warmed the air and melted away the snow. For a short time Johann cursed the thick mud they had to wade through every day. But now, his own life looked less bleak due to the splendid weather.

Throughout winter, Gerd had taught them the basics of Russian, and Johann was able to understand most of the commands and even hold a very basic conversation.

New prisoners arrived from some other camp and Johann climbed the hierarchy ladder to become a

resident prisoner

, with a slightly better standing compared to the newcomers. He jumped at the opportunity when a nearby

kolkhoz

, a collective farm, asked for workers.

The farmer in charge of that particular piece of land was an old, sturdy man. His bushy eyebrows and a long, grey beard gave him a grim look. He examined the

plenni

, the German prisoners, carefully and shook his head, muttering, “Too thin to work.”

Then he talked in rapid-fire Russian with the guard and Johann could only guess at his words. The guard shook his head, and Johann believed he understood, “No. These are the strongest ones we have.”

Well,

strong

wasn’t the word Johann would use to describe anyone in the camp. Skin, bones, and sinew were all they possessed. Every last ounce of fat and muscle had been used up by their starved bodies to keep the heart pumping and the lungs breathing.

The farmer, Igor Smirnov, shrugged and addressed the

plenni

in a short speech – translated by the guard – outlining the tasks and threatening severe punishment should they fail to work hard and honestly.

Johann was used to hard work and vicious beatings should he be too slow for the guards’ liking. This was nothing new and didn’t scare him. As long as the blows didn’t crack his skin, he could handle it. Open wounds, though, were a different matter to deal with. So, he suspiciously eyed the pitchfork in the farmer’s hand. It would mean sure death to be speared by that dirty thing.

The first task was to plant potatoes – tedious work in the heavy, loamy earth. After a short time Johann’s back throbbed and ached from maintaining a bent-over position and he cursed having signed up for this labor detail.

So far it hadn’t proven advantageous compared to the known grind at the lumber mill. But then, much to his surprise – and the disdain of the guards – Smirnov’s wife came to the field with a huge pot.

Lunch? During work hours? This was something Johann hadn’t experienced since being taken captive. The guards and the woman exchanged a few sharp words, but she only shook her head and put the pot down, distributing spoons to the

plenni

.

Johann hesitated to stop working, afraid of the guards’ retaliation, but he couldn’t resist the encouraging nod of the old woman for long. A few seconds later he dropped his shovel and stormed with his fellow prisoners toward the food.

A dozen hungry men dipped their spoons simultaneously into the big pot of watery soup. It was by no means a hearty meal, but it was something to fill the growling stomach. And a short reprieve from the backbreaking work.

All too soon, the barrage of spoons scraped the pot empty and the guards hurried them back to planting potatoes. There was a quota to fill and work to be done. Johann was deliciously rested, and his stomach stopped growling, busy with digesting the unexpected food.

Farmer Smirnov came to scrutinize their work in the afternoon and, judging by the glint in his eyes, he was pleased with the progress the prisoners had made. He and the guard talked for a while and Johann gleaned from the exchange that they were ahead of schedule to meet the target.

“We should slow down,” he whispered to his neighbor, one of the new arrivals.

“Why? If we hurry up, we can finish early.”

Johann scoffed. “In your dreams. They’ll only put us to other work and raise the target for tomorrow.”

Another man, called Reiner, chimed in. “Johann’s right. Never give the Russians more than they ask for. The goal is a sacred cow and has to be reached at all costs. Exceeding the target should only be done with careful measure, and only if there’s a reward to it.”

The newcomer stared at them. “But that’s so stupid!”

“Welcome to communism as it really is,” Johann said.

The next day, Johann and Reiner were tasked with mucking out the pigsty. Sweat was running down his forehead in rivulets as he carried the loaded fork to the dung heap. After half a morning’s work, he undertook the trip to the dung heap for the last time and paused a few moments to take a leak into the muck.

When he returned to the pigsty, Reiner was crouched over the feeding trough, greedily shoving the scraps meant for the pigs into his mouth. Momentarily stunned, Johann stopped in his tracks, mouth hanging agape. What this fellow was doing was strictly forbidden. Stealing food, even if only from the pigs, was punished with a heavy beating, penal work and a day in solitary detention – without food or water.

But glancing at the potato peels, half-rotten carrots and wilting lettuce, he couldn’t resist the allure. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody lurked nearby, he launched himself at the trough, shoving food into his mouth.

Oblivious to anything but the grinding of his teeth, Johann didn’t notice the big man approaching the pigsty. Only when the frame filled the door and cast a shadow in the sty did he turn around and wait with trepidation for the inevitable punishment.

Farmer Smirnov stood in the door, looking at the two

plenni

rummaging in the pigswill. His jaw dropped, aghast at the spectacle in front of his eyes.

“

Tovarish

, please…” Johann uttered.

The farmer glowered at him, the vein in his neck pulsating dangerously, but then he turned around and walked away.

“He let us off the hook,” Johann hissed, heaving like a locomotive.

Reiner flopped to the ground, the slop drooling from his lips. “He could be back with the guard. We’d better…”

“Better what?” There was nothing they could do. If Smirnov reported them, they were done for. Nobody would even ask a German prisoner whether the accusation was true or not.

“We’d better finish our last meal and die with a full stomach,” Reiner said, scavenging for the last scraps of edibles. Johann followed suit, both of them shivering with fear.

But nothing happened. Smirnov didn’t return, and neither did the guard. They cleaned up and walked over to the potato field to continue working with their comrades. Just before it was time to return to the camp, the farmer and his wife showed up on the field, handing a bottle of clear water to the

plenni

. The bottle made its round, and Johann took a measured gulp. Barely enough to quench his maddening thirst, but a welcome refreshment for the long way home.

He handed the bottle back to Smirnov, who didn’t flinch. Yet Johann believed he’d seen him wink. In the evening, Johann divided his bread into three parts and gave one each to Gerd and Helmut.

“Why so generous?” Helmut asked.

There were too many men around and one could never be sure who was a spy, ratting out a comrade for an extra meal, so he simply said, “I’m not hungry.”

Helmut gave him a disbelieving stare, but Gerd took the bread without a qualm. Chewing, he said, “I’ve been hungry only once since the bastards captured me. Perpetually.”

It was an old joke, but Johann chuckled. Today, he ironically felt almost like a human being again, happy, and sated with pigswill.

He worked on the farm for several weeks, and Smirnov always looked away when the prisoners devoured food that wasn’t meant for them. The pigs didn’t seem to mind either.

One evening, a group of prisoners was lying on the grass outside the barracks, enjoying a moment of rest and thinking of home.

“When do you think they’re going to let us go?” Reiner asked.

“Who knows?” Gerd scratched the mosquito bites on his arms. These little insects were even more annoying than the bed bugs, sucking on the blood of the weakened men.

Johann gazed at the light blue sky above him. Pink and orange hues were creeping up the horizon as the sun went down in the west. Soon, the entire sky would burn in the brightest orange and red like a flaring fire.

It irked him. More than a year had passed since the end of World War II and the Russians showed no intention of releasing their prisoners. Who the hell did these bastards think they were? And what gave them the right to keep him and his comrades prisoners… and for how long? Would he have to struggle through another cruel winter? Could he?

Despite the slightly better conditions on the farm, Johann doubted that he had the stamina to withstand another winter in the camp. The anger of so many months boiled in his intestines and suddenly broke free.

“Those damn Russians! Anti-fascism my ass! Communism is worse than Nazism ever was. Worship the sacred cows of Stalin, the Party and the five-year plan, whether it makes any sense or not. Sooner or later they’ll ruin their people and their country with this stupidity.”

Helmut looked at him with shell-shocked eyes. “Shush. If they hear you…”

“Let them hear me, fascist swine!” The words tumbled out of Johann’s mouth. When his brain caught up, his mouth hung agape and he glanced around, frightened, at the men present. Gerd and Helmut wouldn’t report him, he was sure of that. Neither would Reiner, his partner in crime from the pigsty. But there were two or three other men whose allegiances he couldn’t quite place. Well, it was too late and there was nothing he could do but wait.

He didn’t have to wait for long. The next day, after work, he was called to the camp administration. After a short interrogation, he was informed that as of the following day, he was relieved of his duties at the farm and assigned to the coal mine.

Johann remembered well his months working in the quarry at the beginning of his imprisonment in this camp, and he involuntarily shivered. The coal mine was said to be worse.

A glint of triumph filled the commandant’s eyes as he said, “This will teach you to appreciate the goodwill of the Russian people.”

Goodwill of the Russian people

. Johann fought the urge to retch on the official’s shoes. Apart from the Smirnov couple, no other person had showed him goodwill in all these months. But he knew better than to dissent, and kept his eyes glued to the floor. A loose mouth had brought him here and he had no desire to worsen an already ugly situation.

“Yes,

gospodin

commandant,” he said and waited for the officer to dismiss him.

Once outside, Helmut waited for him anxiously. “And?”

“The coal mine.”

“Damn.” Helmut’s eyes filled with shock. “But it could have been worse.”

“It could.” Johann tried to put a good face on the matter. They might have given him a detention, food deprivation, a beating, or any kind of additional punishment. “I guess I should consider myself lucky?”

“Let’s agree that you should keep your mouth shut more often.” Helmut gave him a crooked grin. Helmut had a comparatively easy job as locksmith, because the Russians valued his expertise and ingenuity. He’d tried several times to get Johann assigned to his work detail, but it had never worked.

Johann knew his friend was worried about him. The coal mine had the highest mortality rate of all labor details. Every day, several of the men didn’t return to the camp in the evening. In summer, that is, because in winter even more perished. The inevitable replenishment of the coal mine detail was one of the most feared occasions in the camp.

“Does that mean I won’t get part of your rations anymore?” Helmut made such a puppy-eyed face that Johann had to laugh against his will.

“I guess you’re actually the unlucky guy here.”

“I guess I am. Mostly because I’ll have to put up with your moaning and groaning all night.”

“You know what rankles me most? That the snake who ratted me out now has my job at the farm labor detail,” Johann said.

Helmut nodded. “You need to be more careful. If you haven’t realized it before, there’s an intricate network of stoolies and informers among us. Men who wouldn’t hesitate to sell their own mother if it’s to their benefit.”

The next day

Johann joined his new labor detail and clumped to the mine, brooding. He’d lowered his chances of survival considerably with one careless remark.

Fury snaked through his bony body, leaving a trail of burning behind. Wasn’t he even allowed to voice his disgust at the abhorrent conditions he suffered? Naturally, he knew the answer to that question.

I’m not.

He was the enemy, the hateful Nazi, a fascist. It didn’t matter that the communists used the same fascist notebook the Nazis had mastered. It didn’t matter that the communist

tovarishy

, comrades, doled out the same horrible treatment they condemned in the Nazis. Two different sets of standards existed: one for the Germans and another one for the victors.

And he and his fellow

plenni

were here to repent the sins their country had committed against the Soviets. They had to atone for all the damages done by Germans during the war.

In that very moment it dawned on him, that the Russians had no intention of letting them go, not until the German slave labor rebuilt their country. Just like they had – and still did – dismantled the German industry and rebuilt it all over the Soviet Union, they had also stolen the able-bodied men of the country, as part of the reparations to be paid.

A groan escaped his throat at the realization and his shoulders sagged some more. The depressing outlook hovered over him and then enveloped him like a cloak of despair. A cosh hit the spot between his shoulders and he yelped.

“

Davai, davai

,” the guard urged him on. Quick, quick.

The detail reached the mine and Johann followed one of the prisoners who’d worked in the mine for a while, imitating his moves. They entered a gallery that became lower with each step. At the end it was less than a yard high and Johann sank to his knees alongside the other pitmen, chopping with the heavy pick against the hard walls of the tunnel.

After mere minutes his hands were burning. Without protective gloves, the skin swelled, and blisters bubbled just to tear open and ooze liquid. After an hour, his hands bled and his slim shoulders cramped with the strain.

Thankfully, the guards never crawled inside the gallery, so he could stretch his shoulders and back every now and then in the confined space at his disposal.

Karl, the leader of the group, took pity on him and said, “You switch places with Reinhard and bring the coal outside. Pace yourself but walk quickly as soon as the guards can see you.”

“Thanks,” Johann murmured and squeezed past the man taking his place. The relief lasted only a short moment, because dragging the wheel-less cart with the chipped coal in a crawling position toward the exit proved as strenuous as swinging the pick. At least it offered a bit of respite for the torn skin of his palms.

At the exit he squinted against the blinding sunlight and took a moment to adapt to the light and fully straighten his back. A moment too long.

“

Ugol, ugol, davai, davai!

” Coal, coal, quick, quick, the guard yelled and used his rifle butt to smash Johann’s back.

In and out of the gallery he crawled. In with the empty cart, out with a full one so heavy it took him each time more effort to drag it along. Two more times he switched places with Reinhard, changing merely the type of his suffering, but not the intensity.

After nine excruciating hours at the mine, the guards finally called it a day. Johann shuffled homeward, his hands raw and bleeding, his shoulders and back aching, his legs barely capable to sustain his body, and his stomach cramping with hunger.

Almost delirious, he daydreamed about lowering his head into the pigs’ trough and stealing their swill. One of the sows approached him with contempt on her face and shoved him away with her snout.

But at the camp only a thin nettle soup and a stale piece of bread waited for him. Immediately after dinner he fell on his bunk, unable to get up again to attend to his other chores.

Half sleeping already he heard Helmut’s voice, “Don’t worry. I’ll do all your chores today.”

Johann lasted two weeks and then he collapsed.