plaintively and softly like a fly caught in a spider's web. And on the
other side a young soldier was making severe attempts to lift up his
body out of the mud puddle, while the eyes of his pale youthful face
were already covered with the film of death. But no one paid the
slightest attention to either of them. Each one felt upon himself the
keen, merciless eye of the enemy and dared not budge or even stretch
out a benumbed foot. A grey soldier attempted once to change his
place, whereupon three shots thundered from the other side, and the
man only turned over and remained still. Later two men were killed,
one on each side, and again everything grew still.
The clatter of the rain alone was heard, as though, invisible to the
eye, some one wept bitterly in the forest. The hours were passing, and
the nervous tension grew intolerable, assuming the intensity of agony.
It was quite apparent that things could not go on in this way much
longer, and every one knew that whoever would lift his head would be
killed on the spot. Lord only knows the odd and horrible thoughts that
were passing in these terror-stricken, muddled minds.
Hershel Mak felt very keenly that he was eager to live; that like the
rest of these men, he had a father and mother and also his own little
desires, remote from this place and sacred to him alone. He was also
sorry for "uncle" and for that dying German, who lay in the puddle,
and who had been killed, perhaps by a bullet from "uncle's" rifle.
The hours were passing and the unbearable nervous horror grew, and
the inner tension, terrible and so taut that it seemed to be ready to
snap every second, was beginning to turn into a sort of nightmare,
which makes one shiver all over, which dims one's eyes with red mist,
which banishes all fear of death and suffering and turns all that is
human into an elemental, savage fury.
At the very moment, when the tension reached its highest point and the
nightmare was about to pass in a ruthless engagement, Hershel Mak,
unable to control his strained nerves any longer began to pray
plaintively in the tongue of his forefathers. "_Shma Isroel! Shma
Isroel!_" ... His comrades did not understand him and glanced at him
in terror, as at a madman, but from the opposite side another
frightened and plaintive voice answered him in Jewish: "A Jew!... A
Jew!..."
Hershel Mak's heart fell within him. The mad joy that took hold of him
is indescribable. It was undefiled human joy that filled him to the
brim, when from the place whence he expected only death and hatred
there came familiar human words. Forgetting the deathly peril, he
sprang to his knees, threw up his arms and cried out, as if responding
to a voice heard in the desert.
"I!... I!..."
A shot crashed; but it was only Mak's cap, that jumped up and landed
in the mud puddle. From beyond the stream and the trees a typical head
with ears projecting from under the varnished helmet looked straight
at him.
"Don't shoot!... Don't shoot!" yelled Hershel Mak in Russian, German
and Jewish all at once, waving his hands frantically. And the other
Jew, in a long light-grey cloak was also yelling something to his
fellow-soldiers. Now not one but about ten pairs of eyes looked at
Hershel Mak, with astonishment and sudden joy. A vague, faint hope was
seen in these frightened human eyes, which suddenly became simple and
sympathetic. Then Hershel Mak and the Jew in the light-grey cloak
rushed to the clearing and, splashing in the water, trustingly ran to
each other.
They met between the two ranks of still hostile gun-barrels and
embraced each other in a fit of unreasoning human gladness.
"Are you a Jew?" asked the grey soldier. They kept looking at each
other like two old friends who met where they least expected to find
each other.
In the twilight, after the soldiers gathered up their dead and
wounded, they went each their own way along the ravine, now blue with
the evening fog. Those in the rear kept looking back at the enemy,
suspiciously eyeing them, and nervously clutching with their hands the
cold muzzles of their guns.
Only Hershel Mak and the Jew in the light-grey cloak walked calmly.
Hershel chattered like a monkey, joining now one now another of the
soldiers. He was saying something about his joy, about the great
mission of Judaism. But no one listened to him, and one of the
soldiers said good-naturedly: "Go to the devil, you dirty Jew."
THE END
* * * * *
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