Part 58
The next morning, as we were just starting to recover from endless days of fighting and losses, a liaison arrived with news that made our hearts sink: they said a new commander was coming to our position, a young guy who had never been in combat before, and who had no combat experience, no defensive operations, no enemy kills, or lost comrades. We exchanged glances, exchanged a few words, someone muttered under their breath, but we all understood that we had no choice, and that we had to accept him as he was, because war doesn't ask for our wishes, and commanders come and go, and it depends on them whether we will survive tomorrow. Well, what can you do, we just waited for him, sitting on the porch of that very house where we had spent the last few days, and each of us was already imagining what he would look like and how he would behave, but when the car, raising a cloud of dust, stopped at the gate, and a tall, thin guy with an almost childlike face got out of it, I realized that all my assumptions were far from reality.
He was in new, unseasoned uniform, and his eyes, blue and clear, looked at us with the same expression that I saw in recruits when they first arrived at the front, and he kept looking around, as if expecting an enemy to jump out from behind every corner or a shell to explode. We approached him, greeted him, introduced ourselves, and I noticed how he flinched at every sound, even the faintest one, when somewhere on the horizon the artillery started up again, and he, hearing that rumble, instinctively crouched down and turned pale, as if a bullet could reach him here, in the deep rear, where there hadn't been a single shot fired for several days. We exchanged glances with Mitya, and our looks said the same thing: well, here we are, and what are we going to do with him, how are we going to fight if our commander is afraid of the sounds that we have already stopped noticing, and every gust of wind seems like the beginning of an attack to him.
In the evening, when it got dark and the sky was covered with thick clouds, we sat down to drink tea in a small room where we usually gathered to discuss plans or just be quiet, and the new commander sat among us, clutching a metal mug in his hands, and I saw how his fingers trembled slightly as he brought it to his lips, and how he looked out the window, where the wind rustled and distant sounds could be heard, which he perceived as a threat. He asked us about the battles, about how we were holding up, how many we had lost, and we briefly, without unnecessary details, answered, trying not to create a tense atmosphere, although we were all disappointed inside, and it seemed to us that he would not cope, that at the most critical moment he would panic, or, even worse, make the wrong decision that would cost us our lives, and we could already see how this could happen, how his fear would turn into panic, and how we would be left without leadership at the most inopportune moment.
He spoke quietly, sometimes stumbling over his words, and in his voice I heard not so much uncertainty as a sincere desire to be helpful, he didn't try to act like a hero, didn't give orders, but simply tried to understand what was happening, and this, on the one hand, softened our distrust a little, but on the other hand, it only emphasized his inexperience, and I understood that we would have to carry him on our shoulders, like a heavy burden, until he learned to at least not be afraid of his own shadow. We finished our tea, went to our sleeping places, and I lay in the dark, listening to how someone from the guys was quietly talking on the other side of the wall, and I thought about how a new day would begin, and that this young guy, this boy, who had been put in charge of us, would have to prove that he was worth something, and I prayed that he would find the strength within himself, because it depended not only on our lives, but also on his own, and we didn't want to bury another commander, we were tired of burying people, and we just wanted to survive.
