Contents
Chapter 69 - The Accident
Overview
After Reinhold Zucker bullies Hans Hubermann into swapping seats on a return trip, a blown tire flips the truck. Zucker is killed; Hans breaks his leg. The accident spares Hans from further LSE duty as his sergeant plans to reassign him to Munich, deepening Hans’s guilt while altering his fate.
Summary
On a clear afternoon, Hans Hubermann boards the unit truck. Reinhold Zucker confronts Hans and forces a seat swap, pushing Hans to the middle while Zucker takes the drafty rear. The men notice the petty power play, and Hans yields to avoid further conflict.
En route, a front tire blows. The truck rolls repeatedly, throwing the men and scattering their gear. When it stops, the soldiers check injuries and discover Reinhold Zucker dead, his neck broken, while others suffer burns and fractures.
Hans feels a sharp pain in his leg and admits Zucker had taken his seat, burdened by survivor’s guilt. With the ambulance unavailable, another truck returns them to camp. The men uneasily maneuver around Zucker’s body, at times forgetting and resting their feet on him.
At camp, Hans collapses; the doctor confirms a broken leg. Sergeant Boris Schipper, half-amused, outlines Hans’s likely reassignment from the LSE to lighter duty in Munich, praising Hans’s work and generosity. As plaster is prepared, Hans’s injury becomes his path away from frontline danger, marked by the grim cost of Zucker’s death.
Who Appears
- Hans HubermannForced into a seat swap, survives a truck crash with a broken leg; feels survivor’s guilt and faces reassignment from LSE to Munich.
- Reinhold ZuckerBullies Hans into swapping seats; dies in the crash with a broken neck.
- Boris SchipperSergeant who assesses the situation and plans Hans’s reassignment due to injury.
- Helmut BrohmannTruck driver; tire blowout causes rollover; distraught but not blamed by the men.
- Eddie AlmaSoldier who first notices Zucker’s corpse and calls for help to move him.
- BrunnenwegSoldier joking before the crash; present among the injured survivors.