Men of Winter

Chapter XVII

I glanced at Helena. She still looked dazed but otherwise all right. She had no problem keeping up. In fact, I had the sense at times that she was holding herself back, that she could have left me quite far behind. My head was throbbing dully. I was beginning to feel winded but I must keep going. I must see the fighting; I must be there when the day is won. The sun was fully up now and I was starting to sweat from the exertion. I smelled the spice from the vodka seeping from my pores. It was unaltered. It had traveled through my system, had encountered my chemistry, and emerged unchanged. I suspected I could piss a glassful of the vodka, pure as from the bottle, right now.

Snap out of it! I scolded myself. History is unfolding and I am indulging ridiculous reveries about urinating vodka! I must take in all of the experience so that I can record it perfectly later. Every mortar explosion, every pistol pop – I must etch them all onto my brain. I thought of a stonecarver chipping a tableau of the battle into granite: chip chip chip chip for mortar, chip chip for pistol....

Damn me! I was doing it again. Wandering aimlessly inside the catacombs of my own mind!

I did not know how long the road was. But we could not be too far from the battle. I looked up and thought silvery predawn had returned to the sky but realized it was smoke. The road became softer with the rising of the sun, which made the going more difficult. Helena and I had slowed to a trudge. My recently acquired boots were good for the task but Helena's shoes were not. Her feet were sliding from side to side almost as much as they were moving forward. Also her skirt had become soaked and had to feel as though it weighed several stones. Yet she soldiered on, glassy eyed and taciturn. Her hair was still braided beneath the wool cap but several raven-black strands had come loose and danced in the wind, which was still strong in spite of the trees all around us.

The woods became less dense and without fanfare we came to a clearing and immediately saw army trucks and a series of white open-air canopies with tables beneath them. It looked like someone was set up for a large picnic but I realized this was a medical post. There were soldiers there, the early wounded perhaps.

As Helena and I got closer, I recognized Colonel Slivania, who was working on a soldier's leg. Though the smoke was all skyward, the sulfurous smell of explosives filled the air. We reached the medical post and no one paid us any attention at first. Doctor Slivania's patient had been hit below the left knee, shattering the shin bone and turning the calf muscle into raw meat. The colonel was clamping the artery and trying to stop the bleeding. He looked up for a moment and recognized me, in spite of the change of clothes, but said nothing. The sleeves of his army coat were soaked in blood. The intensity of his work was a contrast to his eyes, which had a far-away look beneath their bushy brows.

There were a dozen or so wounded, and a handful of doctors or medical assistants were tending to the worst cases. One young man had been hit in the face with flying bits of something and the man working with him was trying to extract the debris from his bloody eyes. The other wounded were not so severe, and Helena and I (or just Helena) had attracted their attention.

"I have to go farther," I said to Helena, raising my voice above the blasts. "Closer to the fighting."

"Go on, Hektr, I will wait for you here. Soon they will need as many hands as they can get."

I recalled the drunken husband whose wounded head Helena had mended; she could no doubt be useful to Slivania. And I thought of the young lieutenant, bayoneted in the chest; Helena could no doubt take care of herself as well. "All right – but be vigilant." I thought she might return the advice but she went to one of the wounded men, one who apparently had been shot in the hand.

I continued on. The sounds of battle were louder and louder but I already had grown accustomed enough that I did not flinch at every exceptional explosion. I had begun to detect an almost musical pattern in the artillery blasts and rifle fire, as if it was an avant-garde composition for some radically new opera. If so, the stage was grand and the theatrical effects groundbreaking. My ridiculous costume certainly added to the illusion. But the soldier with the destroyed leg and the blinded one – they were real. The armies were definitely using real weapons, not the pixie dust and incantations I once fantasized.