...of the moment before attack

The Germans in the sky over Brest-Litovsk, the Russians over the steppe... Novikov didn't make this comparison. What he felt then went deeper than any thoughts, memories or comparisons.

The silence returned. The silence was quite suffocating, both for the men who had been waiting to launch the attack on the Rumanian lines and for the men who were to make that attack.

The silence was like the mute, turbid, primeval sea... How joyful, how splendid, to fight in a battle that would decide the fate of your motherland. How appalling, how terrifying, to stand up and face death, to run towards death rather than away from it. How terrible to die young... You want to stay alive. There is nothing stronger in the world than the desire to preserve a young life, a life that has lived so little. This desire is stronger than any thought; it lies in the breath, in the nostrils, in the eyes, in the muscles, in the haemoglobin and its need for oxygen. This desire is so vast that nothing can be compared to it; it can't be measured... It's terrible. The moment before an attack is terrible.

[Life and Fate, Grossman, V.]