Bruno saluted and left.
At 3:45 a.m., Bruno stood at his post on the trench, where his regiment had installed 7,400 gas cylinders along a three-kilometer front. He instructed his men to carry their gas masks, and he wished that he had the authority to command the thousands of infantry soldiers to do the same. The orders to prepare for attack filtered down the lines, and the men of Pioneer Regiment 36 stood ready to open the valves of cylinders containing a highly lethal mixture of chlorine and phosgene gas. Infantry soldiers fixed bayonets to their rifles and gathered near ladders.
Death is death, regardless of how it is inflicted, Fritz Haber’s methodical voice crowed in Bruno’s head. His stomach turned sour, producing the urge to vomit.
The German infantry sent up a green flare, immediately followed by a red flare. Soldiers, their eyes filled with fear, looked to the sky. Seconds later, German artillery exploded. Shells bombarded the enemy trenches. The British launched rockets with parachute flares, which illuminated the battlefield.
Lord, forgive me for what I must do.Cold sweat dripped down Bruno’s forehead. “Release the valves!”
Down the long, winding trench, soldiers of Pioneer Regiment 36 opened cylinder valves. A thick, green gas spewed from nozzles, positioned at ground level, and drifted into no-man’s-land.
Compelled by his sense of duty, Bruno scaled a ladder and peeked over the trench. Using field binoculars, he scanned the battlefield. The gas cloud, hanging low to the ground, moved slowly toward British trenches.
Artillery guns exploded. The earth quaked. As the gas cloud reached the British lines, German infantry officers blew their whistles, sending soldiers up and over the trench.
British machine guns barked.
Several German soldiers, their bodies pierced with bullets, tumbled into the trench. But the masses continued their attack. Soldiers, hunched over and pointing their bayonets, scampered over the barren, shell-holed tundra.
Bullets whizzed above Bruno’s helmet. He pressed his chin to the ground and adjusted his binoculars. As the battlefield came into focus, he watched the gas cloud stall, and then veer away.No!Within seconds, the wind changed, sending the poisonous mist from whence it came—directly toward the German lines.
“Gas! Gas! Gas!” Bruno shouted.
Alarm gongs sounded. Men, who were preparing for the second wave of ground attack, scrambled to find respirators.
Bruno slipped on his gas mask. Breathing hot, recycled air, he felt as if he were suffocating. His lungs heaved, and his pulse pounded in his ears. Through thick lenses, he watched the gas cloud swirl over the battlefield, and then swallow German soldiers. Between explosions, screams filled the air.Oh, God!
The poison floated into the trenches. Men choked and vomited. Through the thick green mist, Bruno struggled to aid soldiers find respirators. But they didn’t have enough gas masks for everyone.
CHAPTER5
LEIPZIG, GERMANY—MAY14, 1916
Max, woken by the clopping of hooves outside his apartment window, rolled over in bed. Being careful not to rouse his fiancée, Wilhelmina, he slid his hand over a bedstand until he located a metal alarm clock. With his fingers, he touched the hour and minute hands.5:30 a.m.Unable to go back to sleep, he listened to the cadence of Wilhelmina’s breath. He tried to visualize her face—cheekbones, nose curvature, lips, and nut-brown eyes—but her image was faded, like a photograph that had been left out in the rain. Despite being close enough to absorb her warmth, he felt choked in desolation.I overheard you weeping before you came to bed. I hate being a burden to you.
Max returned home several weeks ago, following months of hospitalization. Like many other Jews, he’d left to fight for the Fatherland with hope of being treated equal to non-Jewish Germans. But in his quest for egalitarianism and to serve his country, the war had stolen everything—his health, his aspiration to be a composer, and a chance of a joyful life with Wilhelmina.
Poisoned by chlorine gas on the western front, he’d been taken to a field hospital. Wails of men, mixed with a stench of carbolic and gangrene, filled the air. His eyes and trachea burned like they’d been doused with kerosene and set aflame. A medic poured an alkali solution over Max’s corneas, but it did nothing to restore his vision, nor relieve him from the searing pain that flared under his eyelids. With each labored breath, his lungs gurgled and wheezed. Gasping, he’d managed to ask the medic what had happened to his friends Jakob, Otto, and Heinrich.
“Dead,” the medic had said, dabbing Max’s eyes with gauze.
Max was gutted. As he struggled to take in oxygen, he wondered how many hours or days he would be required to suffer until he met the same fate as his comrades. He prayed for quietus. But his diaphragm continued to contract. His heart continued to beat. Eventually, he was given an injection of morphia, which dulled his pain and regulated his respiration. Under a drug-induced haze, he dug his fingernails into his thighs as the medic swabbed his eyes again, and again.
With his eyes tightly bandaged, he spent four days in a field hospital being treated for bronchial pneumonia. Eventually, his breathing stabilized. Too weak to stand, let alone walk, he was carried on a cot to an ambulance, which transported him to a train station. Accompanied by a nurse—whose calm, rhythmic voice reminded Max of hismutter—he traveled to a military hospital in Cologne. In a crowded ward filled with maimed soldiers, a doctor listened to his lungs with a stethoscope. And as the doctor began to remove the bandages, Max prayed that the medic had washed away the poison in time to save his sight.
The doctor, his breath smelling of cigarette smoke, leaned in to examine him. “Can you see anything?”
Dread surged through Max’s veins. “Nein.”
The doctor placed a hand on Max’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Your eyes and lungs are scorched.”
“Is there anything that can be done?” Max asked.
“Your blindness is permanent. But with time and treatment, you might regain lung capacity.”
Max lowered his head into his palms. He took in jagged breaths and fought back tears. He listened to the doctor step away, his shoes clicking over the tile floor. For the rest of the day, he could not bring himself to eat or drink. His mind and heart reeled with a life that would never be. That evening, he enlisted the help of a nurse to scribe a letter to Wilhelmina, informing her of his condition, and promising that he would do everything within his power to regain his health and return home.
He remained in the Cologne hospital for four months. During this time, he received breathing treatments, most of which entailed draping his head with a towel and inhaling steam over a bowl of hot water laced with medicinal oils. Twice, he endured having a rigid bronchoscope inserted into his airways to break up scar tissue. The worst part of this procedure, for Max, was that it was completed while he was awake, using a topical cocaine as a local anesthetic. His loss of vision never changed, but as months passed, his lungs slowly improved their ability to process oxygen. Fighting to regain his stamina, he shuffled over the floors of the hospital. Often unaccompanied, he ran his hand over the walls to guide his way.
