Cold crept up through the hard steel floor plating of the trailer and permeated through Theo's summer uniform making his body quake. It had been a whole day since he and Erwin had been unhooked from the Jeep and left behind to provide ground support for the coming supply train. It had been a cold ride on the back in the open air. Sitting behind the mounted twin Maschinengewehr 34's he had been thankful still that he wasn't on foot. Many of the men had been. Between the mud and constant mechanical issues he had been lucky to make it this far still attached to the Jeep.
He regretted being so generous with the little paper he had now, letting his volksgenosse pad their uniforms with it to keep out the General Winter. He didn't like to admit it, but his generosity had been partly due to the ribbing they had given him for riding while they trekked in the sodden mush. It hadn't been anything more than banter, but it had made him feel bad for them enough that he had sacrificed valuable insulation. In truth it was also an effort to not seem weak and to fit in. What he would give now for something to cover the hastily welded metal plate that sufficed as a seat. Theo had reasoned that he would get resupplied before others and he could wait it out, but the resupply trucks were late and night was falling fast.
The cold reminded him bitterly of his childhood. The years after the Great War had been hard on the German people, and his earliest childhood memories were of a painful hunger. It wasn't until his teens that things had improved for young Theo Albrecht. His father, who he had never known, hadn't returned from the war and his mother had remarried a working man. While she considered herself lucky and Theo was arguably much better off, the tension between himself and his step father made his life turbulent even in the best of times. The man was never abusive or controlling but for a young man finding his way, already angry at the world, there was plenty to argue about. His stepfather's opposition to the war was probably what made Theo join the Heer. That and his wish to hold on to something of the father he had lost.
Unpacking the last of his rations he ate slowly leaving the chocolate to last. He would need that if he was to stay awake through the night. The supply trucks would struggle to navigate the muddy excuse for a soviet road in the dark and possibly had even stopped for the night. A perfect time for an attack by enemy fighters. The moon lit up the sky enough that if he was paying attention he could be the one to shoot down the planes. There was no way he was going to fail at his post. Jumping from the trailer he walked about to stretch his legs, trying not to wake his partner who slept in a bed roll under a nearby tree. During the day people had packed straw and hay into their uniforms to stay warm but nothing along the track was suitable here. Even the dead grass was too wet to consider using.
Even though the conditions were terrible Theo was proud to be here fighting this war. This was going to secure a great future for the country and his own children one day. He had met someone and they had been recently engaged. He was looking forward to a decorated future, one where his kids never had to go through what he did as a child. When the call to war came, he had proudly kissed his fiancé goodbye and promised to return. This was supposed to be a swift victory, and in the early days it had been. The more they pushed east however the pace slowed and the fighting became tense.
The night was long and cold with Theo getting up and pacing many more times in an effort to stave off the cold. The dosed chocolate that had given him a boost early on was now pulling him down into a hole. Desperately he needed sleep but wasn't able to relax. He considered waking Erwin but again felt himself not wanting to be the weak link in a strong chain. Come three am and even the energy to get up had left his body. He sat holding the handle on the machine gun to keep himself upright as much as anything else. The temperature dropped and Theo was sure that dawn was mere moments away when it happened. The sun peeked over the cloudless horizon, lighting a beautiful, frozen landscape. Theo suddenly felt warm as ice crystals reflected light and the scene was like a million shining stars all winking as he looked around. Birds chirped and it felt like everything was going to be ok. It was a new day.
Theo was pulled back in the predawn haze by a man yelling. He tried to fire the machine gun, mostly out of shock from having fallen asleep, but either the gun or his fingers had frozen. Theo realized he couldn't tell. He went to stand up but his legs wouldn't move and a man behind him was grabbing him roughly and shaking him. It was a full ten seconds before Theo realized the man spoke German and was asking his status. These were his volksgenosse. Once again he tried to stand but couldn't feel his legs.
"Dieser ist tot!" A distant voice called.
Who was dead? Theo's head spun. Erwin?
"Dieser hier lebt!" The man clasping Theo's arms yelled back.
Yes, I'm alive. Theo thought back. I'm ok. But he struggled to make the words audible.
"You have bad frostbite." The man told Theo.
Despite his weak protests Theo was removed from his post and loaded into a truck. Inside were more soldiers who quickly laid him down at the front and removed his wet boots. The look on the young man's face as he pulled the sock off brought a fear rising up inside Theo, one that made him quake just as much as the cold had. His feet were white and lifeless with no feeling. His hands were swollen, red, splotchy and stung badly when they removed his gloves. Quickly he was piled under blankets and spare coats on the floor of the transport.
How long the trip was or which direction the truck was traveling was a mystery to Theo. Sometimes he slept, sometimes the pain and the sliding of the truck in the mud kept him awake. He wished he was one of the other men in the truck, heading to the battlefront, how he wished that was where he was going, he wished he was going anywhere but the Krankenstation. The stares of the men weren't judgemental, they were of pity, which was worse.
At some point Theo was transferred to another truck. This truck was full of wounded men and the pity was mostly self contained. No one spoke except to curse in pain at a sudden lurch of the vehicle. At some point Theo had to come to terms with the fact he was leaving the front and going home. This isn't how he wanted to return, in a truck full of wounded. He was praying for a quick recovery but something about his legs worried him badly.
By the time he made it to the hospital, his feet were black.
The following months were unbearable. He spent his days in bed, the stumps, left from his amputated feet suspended by a contraption. He had tried to protest the procedure, but the doctor hadn't time for his pleading. He was sedated and when he awoke, his feet were gone. He could strangely feel them, as if they were still there, even though he knew they weren't. He would have rathered the heavy dead weight than this emptiness left after his ankles.
The news filtering back from the front was all bad too. The attack on Moscow had faltered. Worse still, here Theo was surrounded by the human cost of the war. The ward was filled with sorry cases like himself, some worse, none wanting to share their feelings. They didn't need to say what they were feeling, it permeated the air and filled the room with a suffocating sadness.
The personal cost to Theo was deep and painful, but more horrendous still was the war itself. While he had been serving, it had been easy to bury himself in tasks, to focus on the work. Now he was bedridden and unable to distract himself from the realities of it all. He was broken, physically and then his faith was shaken. They had sacrificed so much at Moscow and the army had been forced to retreat. Many men were lost and even more came through the ward. Not just the German forces either, so much death and all for what if they didn't succeed. He couldn't stand thinking about if they failed, but he couldn't stop himself either. The scars were many and deep. How was he to return home and face his fiancé? Instead he tried not to think about the future or his family at all. Which only left him in the now, alone in a hospital full of broken men. Where once he had been confident and proud, now he faltered and felt nothing but a burning shame.
End.
*******
On 22nd June, 1941 Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, an attack on the Soviet Union. While successful in the early days it stalled in the battle for Moscow in late 1941.
It turned the tide of the second world war.
The Soviet Winter arrived earlier than usual and by the end of 1941 some 100,000 cases of frostbite were reported.
15,000 limbs were amputated.
