What can we do? Nothing. We cannot leave our positions. The enemy might attack at any moment, under protection of the rain. And most of the tents, which were put up hastily and without much experience, have collapsed long ago. Our equipment is lying in dirt and in puddles.
The first night at the front. This is certainly not the way they imag-ined war. The front ants are lying in the mud. They are freezing, wet, and helpless. A surprise attack by the enemy would amount to a blessing. The rain, the mud, the cold - they are much worse. Somehow they will be overcome. But this victory will cause no anthems to be written, no films will be made about that, even if this victory sometimes takes more courage than any battle.
After a few days it became clear that my people were sticking it out despite all their weaknesses. The situation at the front had shown that Shalom Cohen and I were right when we decided to treat the newcomers with the same generosity and friendship that we had experienced in our former units.
Shalom Cohen and I felt very lonely here. Apart from two or three comrades we were the only veterans in the company. Our memories, our jokes, and experiences were alien to the others.
In the evenings we "assembled" in one of the tents with a bottle of stolen cognac or a tin of fruit and exchanged memories. Those were gloomy evenings. One after another we saw the faces of fallen comrades before us. We recalled the wonderful feeling of life in the early days, the wonderful comradeship in the peoples’ army. We shed a silent tear.
The company is like a big lake with some rocks protruding. The lake is the new soldiers, the volunteers from abroad. They are good lads, mainly, but they lack individual features. From close up you can see that they each have their own characteristics, but in the distance they are all the same, like a calm, shallow lake. The rocks, on the other hand, are recognizable from far away - they are the