Page 19 - Excerpts from the diary

They are ready to burn letters and trade in the belongings of a fellow soldier who has merely gone away for a time. They are capable of
anything. There are too few people now, especially in wartime, capable of self-sacrifice to save relatives or acquaintances...
Too few. The majority are petty people filled with animal passions.

After my dressing I stopped at the commandant’s office. There is plenty of room here. Reserve officers sleep here. I had canned food and
sausage and ate a filling meal. So this is how my birthday is passing.

It is getting dark. The Fritz, the reptile, is raging. He fires and fires; the thunder of the guns never stops.

A wounded woman has just been put onto a wagon. A shell fragment wounded her during the bombardment. She shouts and cries: “I
waited for our own people, and now they don’t want to save me.” But thank God they finally put her on the wagon.

I will write several letters and that will be the end of my holiday.

09.03.1944
I took along one mortar man who is ill from a wound; he too is attached to the supply platoon. Before leaving I drank about two hundred
grams of vodka.

My head had been aching persistently. The vodka helped me fall asleep. But in the middle of the night the lice woke me. They had
crawled in even greater numbers over my unfortunate body and were biting bloodthirstily, insatiably, without the slightest mercy. I tossed
and scratched, but it was useless. Toward morning I dozed off and even dreamed something, but quickly came to and woke up.

Dawn was gray and cold, but the lice did not understand that; they were warm and comfortable. Today I will declare a Patriotic War on
them! Let them too become acquainted with the horrors and anxieties of military life in 1944.

The Germans have just devised a new artillery attack on the village with heavy shells. I do not know why they scattered their shells all
around our house, falling four, five, six meters away. All the windows were blown out at the neighbors’ OVS, and now they have decided
to build themselves a stove. There is more than enough smoke—especially at their place, though we have plenty too.

Now I will arrange a roasting for the lice—entertainment for me and death for them—and then go to the medical unit for a dressing.

I roasted them thoroughly. It feels as though I have been born into the world anew.

On the wall of my room is an inscription: “We are leaving in the direction of Trifanovka.” Apparently the Germans left it before
retreating.

12.03.1944
Sukhanovo. Yesterday I came here with the reserve. Our regiment’s personnel section and medical unit were here. I found a magnificent
room with hospitable, generous hosts. They fried potatoes for me in the remains of some canned pork stew I had. There was little stew
and the potatoes did not fry well, but I ate with a great appetite. The hosts’ bread was delicious and pleasant—perhaps even tastier than
the potatoes. I ate until I could eat no more, as I once did in Yessentuki.

Two men from the reserve wanted to move in with me, but I was not destined to enjoy the place for long either. While I was out during
the day, my room was occupied by the medical battalion of our division. I had gone to the regimental medical company for a dressing.
My finger was hurting more and more; it had become unbearable. At the medical company they examined it and discovered that another
felon had developed on the same finger and that another operation was necessary, with a larger incision than before. They froze the
finger. I had the operation there because I did not want to go to the medical battalion. Even before the operation, when they froze my
finger, I began to feel sick; during the operation I almost lost consciousness.

They gave me ammonia to smell. For a long time I felt nauseated and everything went dark before my eyes. I am terribly
hypochondriacal, and my nerves are excessively sensitive to any pain.

Soon, however, I felt better and left. On the way the anesthetic wore off and the finger began to hurt so badly that I thought I could not
bear it. I hurried back to my room. When I arrived, the medical battalion was already in charge there, laying out mattresses and piling
blankets and pillows.

I lay down on one of the beds but could not stay lying down. I sat up but could not remain sitting in one place. I stood, but standing was
difficult too...
Standing was difficult too. I paced around the room. My nerves were on edge, my heart began to beat plaintively, but I do not know how
to cry.

As if to make matters worse, the prostitute who had laughed at me with Vasilyeva when I first came there appeared. She began her
refrain: I would have to leave, because the room was for the wounded, and anyone staying there needed a referral from the medical
company to the medical battalion. I became even more upset, but I did not want a scandal, so I left in silence to look for somewhere else
to stay.

I found a place, but the hostess did not even offer me anything to eat. When I asked her to boil me some potatoes—she was cooking a
whole bucketful for soldiers and commanders who had arrived after me, and they also had flour and provisions of their own—I had