| It had been taken and lost and taken again. The snowstorms had come and covered the corpses, sometimes within hours, so deep that the medical corpsmen often could not find them-until finally almost every day had thrown a new layer of white over the devastation, like a nurse stretching a sheet over a bloody, filthy bed. | Ее занимали и оставляли, оставляли и опять занимали, а метель так заносила трупы, что иногда, спустя несколько часов, санитары многих уже не находили - и почти каждый день белая пелена заново покрывала разрушения, как медицинская сестра покрывает простыней окровавленную постель. |
| First came the January dead. They lay highest and came out at the beginning of April, shortly after the snow began to slip. | Первыми показались январские мертвецы, они лежали наверху и выступили наружу в начале апреля, вскоре после того, как снег стал оседать. |
| Their bodies were frozen stiff and their faces were gray wax. | Тела закаменели от мороза, лица казались вылепленными из серого воска. |
| They were buried like boards. | Их бросали в могилу точно бревна. |
| On a little hill behind the village where the snow was not so deep it had been shoveled away and graves were hacked out of the frozen earth. | На холме за деревней, где снегу было меньше, его расчистили и раздолбили промерзшую землю. |
| It was heavy work. Only the Germans were buried. The Russians were thrown into an open paddock. They began to stink when the weather turned mild. When it got too bad snow was shoveled over them. It was not necessary to bury them; no one expected that the village would be held for any length of time. The regiment was in retreat. The advancing Russians could bury their dead themselves. | Это была тяжелая работа. |
| Beside the December dead were found the weapons that had belonged to the January dead. Rifles and hand grenades had sunk deeper than the bodies; sometimes steel helmets too. | У декабрьских мертвецов оказывалось оружие, принадлежавшее январским - винтовки и ручные гранаты уходили в снег глубже, чем тела; иногда вытаскивали и стальные каски. |
| It was easier with these corpses to cut away the identification marks inside the uniforms; the melting snow had already softened the cloth. | У этих трупов было легче срезать опознавательные жетоны, надетые под мундирами; от талой воды одежда успела размокнуть. |
| Water stood in their open mouths as though they had drowned. | Вода стояла и в открытых ртах, будто это были утопленники. |
| In some cases a limb or two had thawed out. | Некоторые трупы частично уже оттаяли. |
| When they were carried off, the bodies were still stiff, but an arm and a hand would dangle and sway as though the corpse were waving, hideously indifferent and almost obscene. | Когда такого мертвеца уносили, тело его еще не гнулось, но рука уже свисала и болталась, будто посылая привет, с ужасающим, почти циничным равнодушием. |
| With all of them, when they lay in the sun, the eyes thawed first. | У всех, кто лежал на солнце день-другой, первыми оттаивали глаза. |
| They lost their glassy brilliance and the pupils turned to jelly. The ice in them melted and ran slowly out of the eyes-as if they were weeping. | Роговица была уже студенистой, а не остекленевшей, а лед таял и медленно вытекал из глаз. Казалось, они плачут. |
| Suddenly it froze again for several days. | Вдруг на несколько дней вернулись морозы. |
| A crust formed on the snow and turned to ice. | Снег покрылся коркой и обледенел. |
| The snow stopped sinking. | Он перестал оседать. |
