Public Domain Tales: All Quiet on the Western Front is the two-hundredth book in the Public Domain Tales series.
CHAPTER I
We are at rest five miles behind the front. Yesterday we wererelieved, and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans. Weare satisfied and at peace. Each man has another mess-tin full forthe evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausageand bread. That puts a man in fine trim. We have not had such luckas this for a long time. The cook with his carroty head is beggingus to eat; he beckons with his ladle to every one that passes, andspoons him out a great dollop. He does not see how he can empty hisstew-pot in time for coffee. Tjaden and Müller have produced twowash-basins and had them filled up to the brim as a reserve. InTjaden this is voracity, in Müller it is foresight. Where Tjadenputs it all is a mystery, for he is and always will be as thin as arake.
What's more important still is the issue of a double ration ofsmokes. Ten cigars, twenty cigarettes, and two quids of chew perman; now that is decent. I have exchanged my chewing tobacco withKatczinsky for his cigarettes, which means I have forty altogether.That's enough for a day.
It is true we have no right to this windfall. The Prussian is not sogenerous. We have only a miscalculation to thank for it.
Fourteen days ago we had to go up and relieve the front line. It wasfairly quiet on our sector, so the quartermaster who remained in therear had requisitioned the usual quantity of rations and provided forthe full company of one hundred and fifty men. But on the last dayan astonishing number of English field-guns opened up on us withhigh-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that wesuffered heavily and came back only eighty strong.
Last night we moved back and settled down to get a good sleep foronce: Katczinsky is right when he says it would not be such a bad warif only one could get a little more sleep. In the line we have hadnext to none, and fourteen days is a long time at one stretch.
It was noon before the first of us crawled out of our quarters. Halfan hour later every man had his mess-tin and we gathered at thecook-house, which smelt greasy and nourishing. At the head of thequeue of course were the hungriest--little Albert Kropp, the clearestthinker among us and therefore the first to be lance-corporal;Müller, who still carries his school textbooks with him, dreams ofexaminations, and during a bombardment mutters propositions inphysics; Leer, who wears a full beard and has a preference for thegirls from officers' brothels. He swears that they are obliged by anarmy order to wear silk chemises and to bathe before entertainingguests of the rank of major and upwards. And as the fourth, myself,Paul Bäumer. All four are nineteen years of age, and all four joinedup from the same class as volunteers for the war.
Close behind us were our friends: Tjaden, a skinny lock-smith of ourown age, the biggest eater of the company. He sits down to eat asthin as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way;Haie Westhus, of the same age, a peat-digger, who can easily hold aration-loaf in his hand and say: Guess what I've got in my fist; thenDetering, a peasant, who thinks of nothing but his farm-yard and hiswife; and finally Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group,shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face ofthe soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirtyweather, good food, and soft jobs.
Our gang formed the head of the queue before the cook-house. We weregrowing impatient, for the cook paid no attention to us.
Finally Katczinsky called out to him: "Say, Heinrich, open up thesoup-kitchen. Anyone can see the beans are done."
He shook his head sleepily: "You must all be there first." Tjadengrinned: "We are all here."
The sergeant-cook still took no notice. "That may do for you," hesaid. "But where are the others?"
"They won't be fed by you to-day. They're either in thedressing-station or pushing up daisies."
The cook was quite disconcerted as the facts dawned on him. He wasstaggered. "And I have cooked for one hundred and fifty men----"
Kropp poked him in the ribs. "Then for once we'll have enough. Comeon, begin!"
Suddenly a vision came over Tjaden. His sharp, mousey features beganto shine, his eyes grew small with cunning, his jaws twitched, and hewhispered hoarsely: "Man! then you've got bread for one hundred andfifty men too, eh?"
The sergeant-cook nodded absent-minded, and bewildered.
Tjaden seized him by the tunic. "And sausage?"
Ginger nodded again.
Tjaden's chaps quivered. "Tobacco too?"
"Yes, everything."
Tjaden beamed: "What a bean-feast! That's all for us! Each mangets--wait a bit--yes, practically two issues."
Then Ginger stirred himself and said: "That won't do."
Then we got excited and began to crowd around.
"Why won't that do, you old carrot?" demanded Katczinsky.
"Eighty men can't have what is meant for a hundred and fifty."
"We'll soon show you," growled Müller.
"I don't care about the stew, but I can only issue rations for eightymen," persisted Ginger.
Katczinsky got angry. "You might be generous for once. You haven'tdrawn food for eighty men. You've drawn it for the Second Company.Good. Let's have it then. We are the Second Company."
We began to jostle the fellow. No one felt kindly toward him, for itwas his fault that the food twice came up to us in the line too lateand cold. Under shell-fire he wouldn't bring his kitchen up nearenough, so that our soup-carriers had to go much farther than thoseof the other companies. Now Bulcke of the First Company is a muchbetter fellow. He is as fat as a hamster in winter, but he trundleshis pots when it comes to that right up to the very front line.
We were in just the right mood, and there would certainly have been adust-up if our company commander had not appeared. He informedhimself of the dispute, and only remarked: "Yes, we did have heavylosses yesterday."
He looked in the dixie. "The beans look good."
Ginger nodded. "Cooked with meat and fat."
The lieutenant looked at us. He knew what we were thinking. And heknew many other things too, because he came to the company as anon-com. and was promoted from the ranks. He lifted the lid from thedixie again and sniffed. Then passing on he said: "Serve out thewhole issue. We can do with it. And bring me a plate full too."
Ginger looked sheepish as Tjaden danced round him.
"It doesn't cost you anything! One would think the quartermaster'sstore belonged to him! And now get on with it, you oldblubber-sticker, and don't you miscount either."
"You be hanged!" spat out Ginger. When things get beyond him hethrows up the sponge altogether; he just goes to pieces. And as ifto show that all things were now the same to him, of his own freewill he shared out half a pound of synthetic honey equally among us.
To-day is wonderfully good. The mail has come, and almost every manhas a couple of letters and papers. We stroll over to the meadowbehind the billets. Kropp has the round lid of a margarine tub underhis arm.
On the right side of the meadow a large common latrine has beenbuilt, a well-planned and durable construction. But that is forrecruits who as yet have not learned how to make the most of whatevercomes their way. We look for something better. Scattered abouteverywhere there are separate, individual boxes for the same purpose.They are square, neat boxes with wooden sides all round, and haveunimpeachably satisfactory seats. On the sides are hand-gripsenabling one to shift them about. We move three together in a ringand sit down comfortably. For two hours we have been here withoutgetting up.
I well remember how embarrassed we were as recruits in barracks whenwe had to use the general latrine. There were no doors and twentymen sat side by side as in a railway carriage, so that they could bereviewed all at one glance, for soldiers must always be undersupervision.
Since then we have learned better than to be shy about such triflingimmodesties. In time things far worse than that came easy to us.
Here in the open air though, the business is entirely a pleasure. Ino longer understand why we should always have shied at it before.It is, in fact, just as natural as eating and drinking. We did notproperly appreciate these boxes when we first enlisted; they were newto us and did not fill such an important rôle--but now they have longbeen a matter of course.
The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomachand intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived fromthese regions, and they give an intimate flavour to expressions ofhis greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. It isimpossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly andpithily. Our families and our teachers will be shocked when we gohome, but here it is the universal language.
Enforced publicity has in our eyes restored the character of completeinnocence to all these things. More than that, they are so much amatter of course that their comfortable performance is fully as muchenjoyed as the playing of a safe top running flush. Not for nothingwas the word "latrine-rumour" invented; these places are theregimental gossip-shops and common-rooms.
We feel ourselves for the time being better off than in any palatialwhite-tiled "convenience." _There_ it can only be hygienic; _here_it is beautiful.
These are wonderfully care-free hours. Over us is the blue sky. Onthe horizon float the bright yellow, sunlit observation-balloons, andthe many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells. Often theyrise in a sheaf as they follow after an airman. We hear the muffledrumble of the front only as very distant thunder, bumble-bees droningby quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. Thegrasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter aroundand float on the soft warm wind of the late summer. We read lettersand newspapers and smoke. We take off our caps and lay them downbeside us. The wind plays with our hair; it plays with our words andthoughts. The three boxes stand in the midst of the glowing, redfield-poppies.
We set the lid of the margarine tub on our knees and so have a goodtable for a game of skat. Kropp has the cards with him. After everythrow-in the loser pays into the pool. One could sit like this forever.
The notes of an accordion float across from the billets. Often welay aside the cards and look about us. One of us will say: "Well,boys...." Or "It was a near thing that time...." And for a momentwe fall silent. There is in each of us a feeling of constraint. Weare all sensible of it; it needs no words to communicate it. Itmight easily have happened that we should not be sitting here on ourboxes to-day; it came damn near to that. And so everything is newand brave, red poppies and good food, cigarettes and summer breeze.
Kropp asks: "Anyone seen Kemmerich lately?"
"He's up at St. Joseph's," I tell him.
Müller explains that he has a flesh wound in his thigh; a goodblighty.
We decide to go and see him this afternoon.
Kropp pulls out a letter. "Kantorek sends you all his best wishes."
We laugh. Müller throws his cigarette away and says: "I wish he washere."
Kantorek had been our schoolmaster, an active little man in a greytail-coat, with a face like a shrew-mouse. He was about the samesize as Corporal Himmelstoss, the "Terror of Klosterberg." It isvery queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought onby small men. They are so much more energetic and uncompromisingthan the big fellows. I have always taken good care to keep out ofsections with small company commanders. They are mostly confoundedlittle martinets.
During drill-time Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole ofour class went under his shepherding to the District Commandant andvolunteered. I can see him now, as he used to glare at us throughhis spectacles and say in a moving voice: "Won't you join up,Comrades."
These teachers always carry their feelings ready in their waistcoatpockets, and fetch them out at any hour of the day. But we didn'tthink of that then.
There was, indeed, one of us who hesitated and did not want to fallinto line. That was Josef Behm, a plump, homely fellow. But he didallow himself to be persuaded, otherwise he would have beenostracized. And perhaps more of us thought as he did, but no onecould very well stand out, because at that time even one's parentswere ready with the word "coward"; no one had the vaguest idea whatwe were in for. The wisest were just the poor and simple people.They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas people who were betteroff were beside themselves with joy, though they should have beenmuch better able to judge what the consequences would be.
Katczinsky said that was a result of their upbringing. It made themstupid. And what Kat said, he had thought about.
Strange to say, Behm was one of the first to fall. He got hit in theeye during an attack, and we left him lying for dead. We couldn'tbring him with us, because we had to come back helter-skelter. Inthe afternoon suddenly we heard him call, and saw him outsidecreeping towards us. He had only been knocked unconscious. Becausehe could not see, and was mad with pain, he failed to keep undercover, and so was shot down before anyone could go and fetch him in.
Naturally we couldn't blame Kantorek for this. Where would the worldbe if one brought every man to book? There were thousands ofKantoreks, all of whom were convinced that there was only one way ofdoing well, and that way theirs.
And that is just why they let us down so badly.
For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guidesto the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, ofprogress--to the future. We often made fun of them and played jokeson them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority,which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greaterinsight and a manlier wisdom. But the first death we saw shatteredthis belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to betrusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and incleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and underit the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.
While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying.While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing,we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that wewere no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards--they were very free withall these expressions. We loved our country as much as they, we wentcourageously into every action; but also we distinguished the falsefrom the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that therewas nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone;and alone we must see it through.
Before going over to see Kemmerich we pack up his things: he willneed them on the way back.
In the dressing station there is great activity; it reeks as ever ofcarbolic, ether, and sweat. Most of us are accustomed to this in thebillets, but here it makes one feel faint. We ask for Kemmerich. Helies in a large room and receives us with feeble expressions of joyand helpless agitation. While he was unconscious someone had stolenhis watch.
Müller shakes his head: "I always told you that nobody should carryas good a watch as that."
Müller is rather crude and tactless, otherwise he would hold histongue, for anybody can see that Kemmerich will never come out ofthis place again. Whether he finds his watch or not will make nodifference. At the most one will only be able to send it to hispeople.
"How goes it, Franz?" asks Kropp.
Kemmerich's head sinks.
"Not so bad ... but I have such a damned pain in my foot."
We look at his bed covering. His leg lies under a wire basket. Thebed covering arches over it. I kick Müller on the shin, for he isjust about to tell Kemmerich what the orderlies told us outside: thatKemmerich has lost his foot. The leg is amputated. He looksghastly, yellow, and wan. In his face there are already the strainedlines that we know so well, we have seen them now hundreds of times.They are not so much lines as marks. Under the skin the life nolonger pulses, it has already pressed out to the boundaries of thebody. Death is working through from within. It already has commandin the eyes. Here lies our comrade, Kemmerich, who a little whileago was roasting horse-flesh with us and squatting in theshell-holes. He it is still and yet it is not he any longer. Hisfeatures have become uncertain and faint, like a photographic plateon which two pictures have been taken. Even his voice sounds likeashes.
I think of the time when we went away. His mother, a good plumpmatron, brought him to the station. She wept continually, her facewas bloated and swollen. Kemmerich felt embarrassed, for she was theleast composed of all; she simply dissolved into fat and water. Thenshe caught sight of me and took hold of my arm again and again, andimplored me to look after Franz out there. Indeed he did have a facelike a child, and such frail bones that after four weekspack-carrying he already had flat feet. But how can a man look afteranyone in the field!
"Now you will soon be going home," says Kropp. "You would have hadto wait at least three or four months for your leave."
Kemmerich nods. I cannot bear to look at his hands, they are likewax. Under the nails is the dirt of the trenches, it shows throughblue-black like poison. It strikes me that these nails will continueto grow like long fantastic cellar-plants long after Kemmerichbreathes no more. I see the picture before me. They twistthemselves into corkscrews and grow and grow, and with them the hairon the decayed skull, just like grass in a good soil, just likegrass, how can it be possible----
Müller leans over. "We have brought your things, Franz."
Kemmerich signs with his hand. "Put them under the bed."
Müller does so. Kemmerich starts on again about the watch. How canone calm him without making him suspicious?
Müller reappears with a pair of airman's boots. They are fineEnglish boots of soft, yellow leather which reach to the knee andlace all the way--they are things to be coveted.
Müller is delighted at the sight of them. He matches their solesagainst his own clumsy boots and says: "Will you be taking them withyou then, Franz?"
We all three have the same thought; even if he should get better, hewould be able to use only one--they are no use to him. But as thingsare now it is a pity that they should stay here; the orderlies willof course grab them as soon as he is dead.
"Won't you leave them with us?" Müller repeats.
Kemmerich doesn't want to. They are his most prized possessions.
"Well, we could exchange," suggests Müller again. "Out here one canmake some use of them." Still Kemmerich is not to be moved.
I tread on Müller's foot; reluctantly he puts the fine boots backagain under the bed.
We talk a little more and then take our leave.
"Cheerio, Franz."
I promise him to come back in the morning. Müller talks of doing sotoo. He is thinking of the lace-up boots and means to be on the spot.
Kemmerich groans. He is feverish. We get hold of an orderly outsideand ask him to give Kemmerich a dose of morphia.
He refuses. "If we were to give morphia to everyone we would have tohave tubs full----"
"You only attend to officers properly," says Kropp viciously.
I hastily intervene and give him a cigarette. He takes it.
"Are you usually allowed to give it, then?" I ask him.
He is annoyed. "If you don't think so, then why do you ask?"
I press a couple more cigarettes into his hand. "Do us thefavour----"
"Well, all right," he says.
Kropp goes in with him. He doesn't trust him and wants to see. Wewait outside.
Müller returns to the subject of the boots. "They would fit meperfectly. In these boots I get blister after blister. Do you thinkhe will last till to-morrow after drill? If he passes out in thenight, we know where the boots----"
Kropp returns. "Do you think----?" he asks.
"Done for," says Müller emphatically.
We go back to the huts. I think of the letter that I must writeto-morrow to Kemmerich's mother. I am freezing. I could do with atot of rum. Müller pulls up some grass and chews it. Suddenlylittle Kropp throws his cigarette away, stamps on it savagely, andlooking round him with a broken and distracted face, stammers:"Damned shit, the damned shit!"
We walk on for a long time. Kropp has calmed himself; we understand:he sees red, out here every man gets like that sometime.
"What has Kantorek written to you?" Müller asks him.
He laughs. "We are the Iron Youth."
We all three smile bitterly. Kropp rails: he is glad that he canspeak.
Yes, that's the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks!Iron Youth. Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old.But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk.
CHAPTER II
It is strange to think that at home in the drawer of my writing tablethere lies the beginning of a play called "Saul" and a bundle ofpoems. Many an evening I have worked over them--we all did somethingof the kind--but that has become so unreal to me that I cannotcomprehend it any more. Our early life is cut off from the moment wecame here, and that without our lifting a hand. We often try to lookback on it and to find an explanation, but never quite succeed. Forus young men of twenty everything is extraordinarily vague, forKropp, Müller, Leer, and me, for all of us whom Kantorek calls the"Iron Youth." All the older men are linked up with their previouslife. They have wives, children, occupations, and interests, theyhave a background which is so strong that the war cannot obliterateit. We young men of twenty, however, have only our parents, andsome, perhaps, a girl--that is not much, for at our age the influenceof parents is at its weakest and girls have not yet got a hold overus. Besides this there was little else--some enthusiasm, a fewhobbies, and our school. Beyond this our life did not extend. Andof this nothing remains.
Kantorek would say that we stood on the threshold of life. And so itwould seem. We had as yet taken no root. The war swept us away.For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. They areable to think beyond it. We, however, have been gripped by it and donot know what the end may be. We know only that in some strange andmelancholy way we have become a waste land. All the same, we are notoften sad.
Though Müller would be delighted to have Kemmerich's boots, he isreally quite as sympathetic as another who could not bear to think ofsuch a thing for grief. He merely sees things clearly. WereKemmerich able to make any use of the boots, then Müller would rathergo barefoot over barbed wire than scheme how to get hold of them.But as it is the boots are quite inappropriate to Kemmerich'scircumstances, whereas Müller can make good use of them. Kemmerichwill die; it is immaterial who gets them. Why, then, should Müllernot succeed to them? he has more right than a hospital orderly. WhenKemmerich is dead it will be too late. Therefore Müller is alreadyon the watch.
We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they areartificial. Only the facts are real and important for us. And goodboots are scarce.
Once it was different. When we went to the district-commandant toenlist, we were a class of twenty young men, many of whom proudlyshaved for the first time before going to the barracks. We had nodefinite plans for our future. Our thoughts of a career andoccupation were as yet of too unpractical a character to furnish anyscheme of life. We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gaveto life, and to the war also, an ideal and almost romantic character.We were trained in the army for ten weeks and in this time moreprofoundly influenced than by ten years at school. We learned that abright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer. Atfirst astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent, werecognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, notintelligence but the system, not freedom but drill. We becamesoldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they have done everythingto knock that out of us. After three weeks it was no longerincomprehensible to us that a braided postman should have moreauthority over us than had formerly our parents, our teachers, andthe whole gamut of culture from Plato to Goethe. With our young,awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherlandheld by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation ofpersonality such as one would not ask of the meanestservant--salutes, springing to attention, parade-marches, presentingarms, right wheel, left wheel, clicking the heels, insults, and athousand pettifogging details. We had fancied our task would bedifferent, only to find we were to be trained for heroism as thoughwe were circus-ponies. But we soon accustomed ourselves to it. Welearned in fact that some part of these things was necessary, but therest merely show. Soldiers have a fine nose for such distinctions.
By threes and fours our class was scattered over the platoons amongstFrisian fishermen, peasants, and labourers with whom we soon madefriends. Kropp, Müller, Kemmerich, and I went to No. 9 platoon underCorporal Himmelstoss.
He had the reputation of being the strictest disciplinarian in thecamp, and was proud of it. He was a small undersized fellow with afoxy, waxed moustache, who had seen twelve years service and was incivil life a postman. He had a special dislike for Kropp, Tjaden,Westhus, and me, because he sensed a quiet defiance.
I have remade his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time hehad some fault to find and pulled it to pieces. I have kneaded apair of prehistoric boots that were as hard as iron for twentyhours--with intervals of course--until they became as soft as butterand not even Himmelstoss could find anything more to do to them;under his orders I have scrubbed out the Corporals' Mess with atooth-brush. Kropp and I were given the job of clearing thebarrack-square of snow with a hand-broom and a dust-pan, and we wouldhave gone on till we were frozen had not a lieutenant accidentallyappeared who sent us off, and hauled Himmelstoss over the coals. Butthe only result of this was to make Himmelstoss hate us more. Forsix weeks consecutively I did guard every Sunday and was hut-orderlyfor the same length of time. With full pack and rifle I have had topractise on a soft, wet, newly ploughed field the "Prepare toadvance, advance!" and the "Lie down!" until I was one lump of mudand finally collapsed. Four hours later I had to report toHimmelstoss with my clothes scrubbed clean, my hands chafed andbleeding. Together with Kropp, Westhus, and Tjaden I have stood atattention in a hard frost without gloves for a quarter of an hour ata stretch, while Himmelstoss watched for the slightest movement ofour bare fingers on the steel barrel of the rifle. I have run eighttimes from the top floor of the barracks down to the courtyard in myshirt at two o'clock in the morning because my drawers projectedthree inches beyond the edge of the stool on which one had to stackall one's things. Alongside me ran the corporal, Himmelstoss, andtrod on my bare toes. At bayonet-practice I had constantly to fightwith Himmelstoss, I with a heavy iron weapon whilst he had a handywooden one with which he easily struck my arms till they were blackand blue. Once, indeed, I became so infuriated that I ran at himblindly and gave him a mighty jab in the stomach and knocked himdown. When he reported me the company commander laughed at him andtold him he ought to keep his eyes open; he understood Himmelstoss,and apparently was not displeased at his discomfiture. I became apast master on the parallel bars and strove to surpass my instructorat physical jerks;--we have trembled at the mere sound of his voice,but this runaway post-horse never got the better of us.
One Sunday as Kropp and I were lugging a latrine-bucket on a poleacross the barrack-yard, Himmelstoss came by, all polished up andspry for going out. He planted himself in front of us and asked howwe liked the job. In spite of ourselves we tripped and emptied thebucket over his legs. He raved, but the limit had been reached.
"That means clink," he yelled.
But Kropp had had enough. "There'll be an inquiry first," he said,"and then we'll unload."
"Mind how you speak to a non-commissioned officer!" bawledHimmelstoss. "Have you lost your senses? You wait till you'respoken to. What will you do, anyway?"
"Show you up, Corporal," said Kropp, his thumbs in line with theseams of his trousers.
Himmelstoss saw what we meant and went off without saying a word.But before he disappeared he growled: "You'll drink this!"--but itwas the end of his authority. He tried it on once more in theploughed field with his "Prepare to advance, advance" and "Lie down."We obeyed each order, since an order's an order and has to be obeyed.But we did it so slowly that Himmelstoss became desperate. Carefullywe went down on our knees, then on our hands, and so on; in themeantime, quite infuriated, he had given another command. But beforewe had even begun to sweat he was hoarse. After that he left us inpeace. He did indeed always refer to us as swine, but there was,nevertheless, a certain respect in his tone.
There were many other staff corporals, the majority of whom were moredecent. But above all each of them wanted to keep his good job thereat home as long as possible, and that he could do only by beingstrict with the recruits.
Practically every conceivable polishing job in the entire camp fellto us and we often howled with rage. Many of us became ill throughit; Wolf actually died of inflammation of the lung. But we wouldhave felt ridiculous had we hauled down our colours. We became hard,suspicious, pitiless, vicious, tough--and that was good; for theseattributes had been entirely lacking in us. Had we gone into thetrenches without this period of training most of us would certainlyhave gone mad. Only thus were we prepared for what awaited us. Wedid not break down, but endured; our twenty years, which made manyanother thing so grievous, helped us in this. But by far the mostimportant was that it awakened in us a strong, practical sense of_esprit de corps_, which in the field developed into the finest thingthat arose out of the war--comradeship.
I sit by Kemmerich's bed. He is sinking steadily. Around us is agreat commotion. A hospital train has arrived and the wounded fit tobe moved are being selected. The doctor passes by Kemmerich's bedwithout once looking at him.
"Next time, Franz," I say.
He raises himself on the pillow with his elbows. "They haveamputated my leg."
He knows it too then. I nod and answer: "You must be thankful you'vecome off with that."
He is silent.
I resume: "It might have been both legs, Franz. Wegeler has lost hisright arm. That's much worse. Besides, you will be going home." Helooks at me. "Do you think so?"
"Of course."
"Do you think so?" he repeats.
"Sure, Franz. Once you've got over the operation."
He beckons me to bend down. I stoop over him and he whispers: "Idon't think so."
"Don't talk rubbish, Franz, in a couple of days you'll see foryourself. What is it anyway--an amputated leg? here they patch upfar worse things than that."
He lifts one hand. "Look here though, these fingers."
"That's the result of the operation. Just eat decently and you'llsoon be well again. Do they look after you properly?"
He points to a dish that is still half full. I get excited. "Franz,you must eat. Eating is the main thing. That looks good too."
He turns away. After a pause he says slowly: "I wanted to become ahead-forester once."
"So you may still," I assure him. "There are splendid artificiallimbs now, you'd hardly know there was anything missing. They arefixed on to the muscles. You can move the fingers and work and evenwrite with an artificial hand. And besides, they will always bemaking new improvements."
For a while he lies still. Then he says: "You can take my lace-upboots with you for Müller."
I nod and wonder what to say to encourage him. His lips have fallenaway, his mouth has become larger, his teeth stick out and look asthough they were made of chalk. The flesh melts, the forehead bulgesmore prominently, the cheek-bones protrude. The skeleton is workingitself through. The eyes are already sunken in. In a couple ofhours it will be over.
He is not the first that I have seen thus; but we grew up togetherand that always makes it a bit different. I have copied his essays.At school he used to wear a brown coat with a belt and shiny sleeves.He was the only one of us, too, who could do the giant's turn on thehorizontal bar. His hair flew in his face like silk when he did it.Kantorek was proud of him for it. But he couldn't endure cigarettes.His skin was very white; he had something of the girl about him.
I glance at my boots. They are big and clumsy, the breeches aretucked into them, and standing up one looks well-built and powerfulin these great drain-pipes. But when we go bathing and strip,suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are nolonger soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe thatwe could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked;then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. Whenbathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. Therehe lies now--but why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed andsay: "That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, hedoesn't want to die. Let him not die!"
My thoughts become confused. This atmosphere of carbolic andgangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates.
It grows dark. Kemmerich's face changes colour, it lifts from thepillow and is so pale that it gleams. The mouth moves slightly. Idraw near to him. He whispers: "If you find my watch, send ithome----"
I do not reply. It is no use any more. No one can console him. Iam wretched with helplessness. This forehead with its hollowtemples, this mouth that is now merely a slit, this sharp nose! Andthe fat, weeping woman at home to whom I must write. If only theletter were sent off already!
Hospital-orderlies go to and fro with bottles and pails. One of themcomes up, casts a glance at Kemmerich and goes away again. You cansee he is waiting, apparently he wants the bed.
I bend over Franz and talk to him as though that could save him:"Perhaps you will go to the convalescent home at Klosterberg, amongthe villas, Franz. Then you can look out from the window across thefields to the two trees on the horizon. It is the loveliest time ofthe year now, when the corn ripens; at evening the fields in thesunlight look like mother-of-pearl. And the lane of poplars by theKlosterbach, where we used to catch sticklebacks! You can build anaquarium again and keep fish in it, and you can go out without askinganyone, you can even play the piano if you want to."
I lean down over his face which lies in the shadow. He stillbreathes, lightly. His face is wet, he is crying. What a fine messI have made of it with my foolish talk!
"But Franz"--I put my arm round his shoulder and put my face againsthis. "Will you sleep now?"
He does not answer. The tears run down his cheeks. I would like towipe them away but my handkerchief is too dirty.
An hour passes. I sit tensely and watch his every movement in casehe may perhaps say something. What if he were to open his mouth andcry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does notspeak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing;all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his littlelife of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. This is themost disturbing and hardest parting that ever I have seen, althoughit was pretty bad too with Tiedjen, who called for his mother--a bigbear of a fellow who, with wild eyes full of terror, held off thedoctor from his bed with a dagger until he collapsed.
Suddenly Kemmerich groans and begins to gurgle.
I jump up, stumble outside and demand:
"Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?"
As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold of it: "Come quick,Franz Kemmerich is dying."
He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: "Which will thatbe?"
He says: "Bed 26, amputated thigh."
He sniffs: "How should I know anything about it, I've amputated fivelegs to-day"; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly "Yousee to it," and runs off to the operating room.
I tremble with rage as I go along with the orderly. The man looks atme and says: "One operation after another since five o'clock thismorning. You know to-day alone there have been sixteen deaths--yoursis the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether----"
I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile anymore, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again.
We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The face is still wet fromthe tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons.
The orderly pokes me in the ribs. "Are you taking his things withyou?" I nod.
He goes on: "We must take him away at once, we want the bed. Outsidethey are lying on the floor."
I collect the things, untie Kemmerich's identification disc and takeit away. The orderly asks about the pay-book, I say that it isprobably in the orderly-room, and go. Behind me they are alreadyhauling Franz on to a water-proof sheet.
Outside the door I am aware of the darkness and the wind as adeliverance. I breathe as deep as I can, and feel the breeze in myface, warm and soft as never before. Thoughts of girls, of flowerymeadows, of white clouds suddenly come into my head. My feet beginto move forward in my boots, I go quicker, I run. Soldiers pass byme, I hear their voices without understanding. The earth isstreaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of myfeet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like aconcert of drums. My limbs move supply, I feel my joints strong, Ibreathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger,greater than comes from the belly alone.
Müller stands in front of the hut and waits for me. I give him theboots. We go in and he tries them on. They fit well.
He roots among his supplies and offers me a fine piece of saveloy.With it goes hot tea and rum.
CHAPTER III
Reinforcements have arrived. The vacancies have been filled and thesacks of straw are already laid out in the huts. Some of them areold hands, but there are twenty-five men of a later draft from thebase. They are about two years younger than us. Kropp nudges me:"Seen the infants?"
I nod. We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our handsin our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves to bestone-age veterans.
Katczinsky joins us. We stroll past the horse-boxes and go over tothe reinforcements, who have already been issued with gas-masks andcoffee.
"Long time since you've had anything decent to eat, eh?" Kat asks oneof the youngsters.
He grimaces. "For breakfast, turnip-bread--lunch,turnip-stew--supper, turnip-cutlets and turnip-salad." Kat gives aknowing whistle.
"Bread made of turnips? You've been in luck, it's nothing new for itto be made of sawdust. But what do you say to haricot beans? Havesome?"
The youngster turns red: "You can't kid me."
Katczinsky merely says: "Fetch your mess-tin."
We follow curiously. He takes us to a tub beside his straw sack. Itis nearly half full of a stew of beef and beans. Katczinsky plantshimself in front of it like a general and says:
"Sharp eyes and light fingers! That's what the Prussians say."
We are surprised. "Great guts, Kat, how did you come by that?" I askhim.
"Ginger was glad I took it. I gave him three pieces of parachutesilk for it. Cold beans taste fine, too."
Grudgingly he gives the youngster a portion and says:
"Next time you come with your mess-tin have a cigar or a chew oftobacco in your other hand. Get me?" Then he turns to us. "You getoff scot free, of course."
Katczinsky never goes short; he has a sixth sense. There are suchpeople everywhere but one does not appreciate it at first. Everycompany has one or two. Katczinsky is the smartest I know. By tradehe is a cobbler, I believe, but that hasn't anything to do with it;he understands all trades. It's a good thing to be friends with him,as Kropp and I are, and Haie Westhus too, more or less. But Haie israther the executive arm operating under Kat's orders when thingscome to blows. For that he has his qualifications.
For example, we land at night in some entirely unknown spot, a sorryhole, that has been eaten out to the very walls. We are quartered ina small dark factory adapted to the purpose. There are beds in it,or rather bunks--a couple of wooden beams over which wire netting isstretched.
Wire netting is hard. And there's nothing to put on it. Ourwaterproof sheets are too thin. We use our blankets to coverourselves.
Kat looks at the place and then says to Haie Westhus: "Come with me."They go off to explore. Half an hour later they are back again witharms full of straw. Kat has found a horse-box with straw in it. Nowwe might sleep if we weren't so terribly hungry.
Kropp asks an artilleryman who has been some time in thisneighbourhood: "Is there a canteen anywhere abouts?"
"Is there a what?" he laughs. "There's nothing to be had here. Youwon't find so much as a crust of bread here."
"Aren't there any inhabitants here at all then?"
He spits. "Yes, a couple. But they mostly loaf round the cook houseand beg."
"That's a bad business!--Then we'll have to pull in our belts andwait till the rations come up in the morning."
But I see Kat has put on his cap.
"Where to, Kat?" I ask.
"Just to explore the place a bit." He strolls off. The artillerymangrins scornfully. "Let him explore! But don't be too hopeful aboutit."
Disappointed we lie down and consider whether we couldn't have a goat the iron rations. But it's too risky; so we try to get a wink ofsleep.
Kropp divides a cigarette and hands me half. Tjaden gives an accountof his national dish--broad-beans and bacon. He despises it when notflavoured with bog-myrtle, and, "for God's sake, let it all be cookedtogether, not the potatoes, the beans, and the bacon separately."Someone growls that he will pound Tjaden into bog-myrtle if hedoesn't shut up. Then all becomes quiet in the big room--only thecandles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles and theartilleryman spitting every now and then.
We stir a bit as the door opens and Kat appears. I think I must bedreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and ablood-stained sandbag full of horse-flesh in his hand. Theartilleryman's pipe drops from his mouth. He feels the bread. "Realbread, by God! and still hot too!"
Kat gives no explanation. He has the bread, the rest doesn't matter.I'm sure that if he were planted down in the middle of the desert, inhalf an hour he would have gathered together a supper of roast meat,dates, and wine.
"Cut some wood," he says curtly to Haie.
Then he hauls out a frying-pan from under his coat, and a handful ofsalt as well as a lump of fat from his pocket. He has thought ofeverything. Haie makes a fire on the floor. It lights up the emptyroom of the factory. We climb out of bed.
The artilleryman hesitates. He wonders whether to praise Kat and soperhaps gain a little for himself. But Katczinsky doesn't even seehim, he might as well be thin air. He goes off cursing.
Kat knows the way to roast horse-flesh so that it's tender. Itshouldn't be put straight into the pan, that makes it tough. Itshould be boiled first in a little water. With our knives we squatround in a circle and fill our bellies.
That is Kat. If for but one hour in a year something eatable were tobe had in some one place only, within that hour, as if moved by avision, he would put on his cap, go out and walk directly there, asthough following a compass, and find it.
He finds everything--if it is cold, a small stove and wood, hay andstraw, a table and chairs--but above all food. It is uncanny; onewould think he conjured it out of the air. His masterpiece was fourboxes of lobsters. Admittedly we would rather have had a good beefsteak.
We have settled ourselves on the sunny side of the hut. There is asmell of tar, of summer, and of sweaty feet. Kat sits beside me. Hewants to talk. To-day we have been practising saluting becauseTjaden failed to salute a major. Kat can't get it out of his head.
"You see, we are losing the war because we can salute too well," hesays.
Kropp stalks up, with his breeches rolled up and his feet bare. Helays out his washed socks to dry on the grass. Kat turns his eyes toheaven, lets off a mighty fart, and says apologetically: "Everylittle bean must be heard as well as seen."
The two begin to argue. At the same time they lay a bottle of beeron the result of an air-fight that's going on above us. Katczinskywon't budge from the opinion, which as an old Front-hog, he rhymes:
Give 'em all the same grub and all the same pay And the war would be over and done in a day.
Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declarationof war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets andbands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers andgenerals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armedwith clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, hiscountry wins. That would be much simpler and more just than thisarrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting.
The subject is dropped. Then the conversation turns to drill.
A picture comes before me. Burning midday in the barrack-yard. Theheat hangs over the square. The barracks are deserted. Everythingsleeps. All one hears is the drummers practising; they haveinstalled themselves anywhere and practise brokenly, dully,monotonously. What a concord! Midday heat, barrack-square, anddrummers beating!
The windows of the barracks are empty and dark. From some of themtrousers are hanging to dry. The rooms are cool and one looks towardthem longingly.
O dark, musty platoon huts, with the iron bedsteads, the chequeredbedding, the lockers and the stools! Even you can become the objectof desire; out here you have a faint resemblance to home; your rooms,full of the smell of stale food, sleep, smoke, and clothes!
Katczinsky paints it all in lively colours. What would we not giveto be able to go back to it! But we must not pursue that line ofthought any further.
Those early morning hours of instruction--"What are the parts of the98 rifle?"--the midday hours of physical training--"Pianist, forward!By the right, quick march. Report to the cook-house forpotato-peeling."
We indulge in reminiscences. Kropp laughs suddenly and says: "Changeat Löhne!"
That was our corporal's favourite game. Löhne is a railway junction.In order that our fellows going on leave shouldn't get lost there,Himmelstoss used to practise the change in the barrack-room. We hadto learn that at Löhne, to reach the branch-line, we must passthrough a subway. The beds represented the subway and each man stoodat attention on the left side of his bed. Then came the command:"Change at Löhne!" and like lightning everyone scrambled under thebed to the opposite side. We practised this for a whole hour----
Meanwhile the German aeroplane has been shot down. Like a comet itbursts into a streamer of smoke and falls headlong. Kropp has lostthe bottle of beer. Disgruntled he counts out the money from hiswallet.
"Surely Himmelstoss was a very different fellow as a postman," say I,after Albert's disappointment has subsided. "Then how does it comethat he's such a bully as a drill-sergeant?"
The question revives Kropp, more particularly as he hears there's nomore beer in the canteen. "It's not only Himmelstoss, there are lotsof them. As sure as they get a stripe or a star they becomedifferent men, just as though they'd swallowed concrete."
"That's the uniform," I suggest.
"Roughly speaking it is," says Kat, and prepares for a long speech;"but the root of the matter lies elsewhere. For instance, if youtrain a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meatin front of him, he'll snap at it, it's his nature. And if you givea man a little bit of authority he behaves just the same way, hesnaps at it too. The things are precisely the same. In himself manis essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of breadwith a little decorum. The army is based on that; one man mustalways have power over the other. The mischief is merely that eachone has much too much power. A non-com. can torment a private, alieutenant a non-com., a captain a lieutenant, until he goes mad.And because they know they can, they all soon acquire the habit moreor less. Take a simple case: we are marching back from theparade-ground dog-tired. Then comes the order to sing. We are gladenough to be able to trail arms but we sing spiritlessly. At oncethe company is turned about and has to do another hour's drill aspunishment. On the march back the order to sing is given again, andonce more we start. Now what's the use of all that? It's simplythat the company commander's head has been turned by having so muchpower. And nobody blames him. On the contrary, he is praised forbeing strict. That, of course, is only a trifling instance, but itholds also in very different affairs. Now I ask you: Let a man bewhatever you like in peace-time, what occupation is there in which hecan behave like that without getting a crack on the nose? He canonly do that in the army. It goes to the heads of them all, you see.And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life the worse ittakes him."
"They say, of course, there must be discipline," ventures Kroppmeditatively.
"True," growls Kat, "they always do. And it may be so; still itoughtn't to become an abuse. But you try to explain that to ablacksmith or a labourer or a workman, you try to make that clear toa simple tommy--and that's what most of them are here. All heunderstands is that he has been properly trained so that when hecomes up to the front he thinks he knows exactly what he should do inevery circumstance and what not. It's simply amazing, I tell you,that the ordinary soldier survives so long up here in the front-line.Simply amazing!"
No one protests. Everyone knows that drill ceases only in thefront-line and begins again a few miles behind, with all theabsurdities of saluting and parade. It is an iron law that thesoldier must be employed under every circumstance.
Here Tjaden comes up with a flushed face. He is so excited that hestutters. Beaming with satisfaction he stammers out: "Himmelstoss ison his way. He's coming to the front!"
Tjaden has a special grudge against Himmelstoss, because of the wayhe educated him in the barracks. Tjaden wets his bed, he does it atnight in his sleep. Himmelstoss maintained that it was sheerlaziness and invented a method worthy of himself for curing Tjaden.
He hunted up another piss-a-bed, named Kindervater, from aneighbouring hut, and quartered him with Tjaden. In the huts therewere the usual bunks, one above the other in pairs, with mattressesof wire-netting. Himmelstoss put these two so that one occupied theupper and the other the lower bunk. The man underneath was of coursedisgusted. The next night they were changed over and the lower oneput on top so that he could retaliate. That was Himmelstoss's systemof self-education.
The idea was low but not ill-conceived. Unfortunately itaccomplished nothing because the first assumption was wrong: it wasnot laziness in either of them. Anyone who looked at their sallowskin could see that. The matter ended in one of them always sleepingon the floor, where he frequently caught cold.
Meanwhile Haie sits down beside us. He winks at me and rubs his pawsthoughtfully. We once spent the finest day of our army-lifetogether--the day before we left for the front. We had been allottedto one of the recently formed regiments, but were first to be sentback for equipment to the garrison, not to the reinforcement-depot,of course, but to another barracks. We were due to leave nextmorning early. In the evening we prepared ourselves to squareaccounts with Himmelstoss.
We had sworn for weeks past to do this. Kropp had even gone so faras to propose entering the postal service in peace-time in order tobe Himmelstoss's superior when he became a postman again. Herevelled in the thought of how he would grind him. It was this thatmade it impossible for him to crush us altogether--we always reckonedthat later, at the end of the war, we would have our revenge on him.
In the meantime we decided to give him a good hiding. What could hedo to us anyhow if he didn't recognize us and we left early the nextmorning?
We knew which pub he used to visit every evening. Returning to thebarracks he had to go along a dark, uninhabited road. There wewaited for him behind a pile of stones. I had a bed-cover with me.We trembled with suspense, hoping he would be alone. At last weheard his footstep, which we recognized easily, so often had we heardit in the mornings as the door flew open and he bawled: "Get up!"
"Alone?" whispered Kropp.
"Alone."
I slipped round the pile of stones with Tjaden.
Himmelstoss seemed a little elevated; he was singing. Hisbelt-buckle gleamed. He came on unsuspectingly.
We seized the bed-cover, made a quick leap, threw it over his headfrom behind and pulled it round him so that he stood there in a whitesack unable to raise his arms. The singing stopped. The next momentHaie Westhus was there, and spreading out his arms he shoved us backin order to be first in. He put himself in position with evidentsatisfaction, raised his arm like a signal-mast and his hand like acoal-shovel and fetched such a blow on the white sack as would havefelled an ox.
Himmelstoss was thrown down, he rolled five yards and started toyell. But we were prepared for that and had brought a cushion. Haiesquatted down, laid the cushion on his knees, felt whereHimmelstoss's head was and pressed it down on the pillow.Immediately his voice was muffled. Haie let him get a gasp of airevery so often, when he would give a mighty yell that was immediatelyhushed.
Tjaden unbuttoned Himmelstoss's braces and pulled down his trousers,holding the whip meantime in his teeth. Then he stood up and set towork.
It was a wonderful picture: Himmelstoss on the ground; Haie bendingover him with a fiendish grin and his mouth open with blood-lust,Himmelstoss's head on his knees; then the convulsed, striped drawers,the knock knees, executing at every blow most original movements inthe lowered breeches, and towering over them like a woodcutter theindefatigable Tjaden. In the end we had to drag him away to get ourturn.
Finally Haie stood Himmelstoss on his feet again and gave one lastpersonal remonstrance. As he stretched out his right arm preparatoryto giving him a box on the ear he looked as if he were going to reachdown a star.
Himmelstoss staggered. Haie stood him up again, made ready andfetched him a second, well-aimed beauty with the left hand.Himmelstoss yelled and fell down on all fours cursing. His stripedpostman's backside gleamed in the moonlight.
We disappeared at full speed.
Haie looked round once again and said wrathfully, satisfied andrather mysteriously:
"Revenge is black-pudding."
Himmelstoss ought to have been pleased; his saying that we shouldeach educate one another had borne fruit for himself. We had becomesuccessful students of his method.
He never discovered whom he had to thank for the business. At anyrate he scored a bed-cover out of it; for when we returned a fewhours later to look for it, it was no longer to be found.
That evening's work made us more or less content to leave nextmorning. And an old buffer was pleased to describe us as "youngheroes."
CHAPTER IV
We have to go up on wiring fatigue. The motor lorries roll up afterdark. We climb in. It is a warm evening and the twilight seems likea canopy under whose shelter we feel drawn together. Even the stingyTjaden gives me a cigarette and then a light.
We stand jammed in together, shoulder to shoulder, there is no roomto sit. But we do not expect that. Müller is in a good mood foronce; he is wearing his new boots.
The engines drone, the lorries bump and rattle. The roads are wornand full of holes. We dare not show a light so we lurch along andare often almost pitched out. That does not worry us, however. Itcan happen if it likes; a broken arm is better than a hole in theguts, and many a man would be thankful enough for such a chance offinding his way home again.
Beside us stream the munition-columns in long files. They are makingthe pace, they overtake us going forward. We joke with them and theyanswer back.
A wall becomes visible, it belongs to a house which lies on the sideof the road. I suddenly prick up my ears. Am I deceived? Again Ihear distinctly the cackle of geese. A glance at Katczinsky--aglance from him to me; we understand one another.
"Kat, I hear some aspirants for the frying-pan over there."
He nods. "It will be attended to when we come back. I have theirnumber."
Of course Kat has their number. He knows all about every leg ofgoose within a radius of fifteen miles.
The lorries arrive at the artillery lines. The gun-emplacements arecamouflaged with bushes against aerial observation, and look like akind of military Feast of the Tabernacles. These branches might seemgay and cheerful were not cannon embowered there.
The air becomes acrid with the smoke of the guns and the fog. Thefumes of powder taste bitter on the tongue. The roar of the gunsmakes our lorry stagger, the reverberation rolls raging away to therear, everything quakes. Our faces change imperceptibly. We arenot, indeed, in the front-line, but only in the reserves, yet inevery face can be read: This is the Front, now we are within itsembrace.
It is not fear. Men who have been up as often as we have becomethick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated. Kat explainsto them: "That was a twelve-inch. You hear the explosion first andafterwards comes the sound of the gun."
But the hollow sound of the firing does not reach us. It isswallowed up in the general murmur of the front. Kat listens:"There'll be a bombardment to-night."
We all listen. The front is restless. "The Tommies are firingalready," says Kropp.
The shelling can be heard distinctly. It is the English batteries tothe right of our section. They are beginning an hour too soon.According to us they start punctually at ten o'clock.
"What's got them?" says Müller, "their clocks must be fast."
"There'll be a bombardment, I tell you, I can feel it in my bones."Kat shrugs his shoulders.
Three shells land beside us. The burst of flame shoots across thefog, the fragments howl and drone. We shiver and are glad to thinkthat we shall be back in the huts early in the morning.
Our faces are neither paler nor more flushed than usual; they are notmore tense nor more flabby--and yet they are changed. We feel thatin our blood a contact has shot home. That is no figure of speech;it is fact. It is the front, the consciousness of the front, thatmakes this contact. The moment that the first shells whistle overand the air is rent with the explosions there is suddenly in ourveins, in our hands, in our eyes a tense waiting, a watching, aheightened alertness, a strange sharpening of the senses. The bodywith one bound is in full readiness.
It often seems to me as though it were the vibrating, shuddering airthat with a noiseless leap springs upon us; or as though the frontitself emitted an electric current which awakened unknownnerve-centres.
Every time it is the same. We start out for the front plainsoldiers, either cheerful or gloomy: then come the firstgun-emplacements and every word of our speech has a new ring.
When Kat stands in front of the hut and says: "There'll be abombardment," that is merely his own opinion; but if he says it here,then the sentence has the sharpness of a bayonet in the moonlight, itcuts clean through the thought, it thrusts nearer and speaks to thisunknown thing that is awakened in us, a dark meaning--"There'll be abombardment." Perhaps it is our inner and most secret life thatshivers and falls on guard.
To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in stillwater far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortexsucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.
From the earth, from the air, sustaining forces pour into us--mostlyfrom the earth. To no man does the earth mean so much as to thesoldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully,when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear ofdeath by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, hismother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and hersecurity; she shelters him and gives him a new lease of ten secondsof life, receives him again and often for ever.
Earth!--Earth!--Earth!
Earth with thy folds, and hollows and holes, into which a man mayfling himself and crouch down! In the spasm of terror, under thehailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of the explosions, OEarth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life.Our being, almost utterly carried away by the fury of the storm,streams back through our hands from thee, and we, thy redeemed ones,bury ourselves in thee, and through the long minutes in a mute agonyof hope bite into thee with our lips!
At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in onepart of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that isawakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it isfar quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. Onecannot explain it. A man is walking along without thought orheed;--suddenly he throws himself down on the ground and a storm offragments flies harmlessly over him;--yet he cannot remember eitherto have heard the shell coming or to have thought of flinging himselfdown. But had he not abandoned himself to the impulse he would nowbe a heap of mangled flesh. It is this other, this second sight inus, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without ourknowing how. If it were not so, there would not be one man alivefrom Flanders to the Vosges.
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers--we reach the zone wherethe front begins and become on the instant human animals.
An indigent looking wood receives us. We pass by the soup-kitchens.Under cover of the wood we climb out. The lorries turn back. Theyare to collect us again in the morning, before dawn.
Mist and the smoke of guns lie breast-high over the fields. The moonis shining. Along the road troops file. Their helmets gleam softlyin the moonlight. The heads and the rifles stand out above the whitemist, nodding heads, rocking carriers of guns.
Farther on the mist ends. Here the heads become figures; coats,trousers, and boots appear out of the mist as from a milky pool.They become a column. The column marches on, straight ahead, thefigures resolve themselves into a block, individuals are no longerrecognizable, the dark wedge presses onward, fantastically topped bythe heads and weapons floating off on the milky pool. A column--notmen at all.
Guns and munition wagons are moving along a cross-road. The backs ofthe horses shine in the moonlight, their movements are beautiful,they toss their heads, and their eyes gleam. The guns and the wagonsfloat before the dim background of the moonlit landscape, the ridersin their steel helmets resemble knights of a forgotten time; it isstrangely beautiful and arresting.
We push on to the pioneer dump. Some of us load our shoulders withpointed and twisted iron stakes; others thrust smooth iron rodsthrough rolls of wire and go off with them. The burdens are awkwardand heavy.
The ground becomes more broken. From ahead come warnings: "Look out,deep shell-hole on the left"--"Mind, trenches"----
Our eyes peer out, our feet and our sticks feel in front of us beforethey take the weight of the body. Suddenly the line halts; I bump myface against the roll of wire carried by the man in front and curse.
There are some shell-smashed lorries in the road. Another order:"Cigarettes and pipes out," We are getting near the line.
In the meantime it has become pitch dark. We skirt a small wood andthen have the front line immediately before us.
An uncertain, red glow spreads along the sky line from one end to theother. It is in perpetual movement, punctuated with the bursts offlame from the muzzles of the batteries. Balls of light rise up highabove it, silver and red spheres which explode and rain down inshowers of red, white, and green stars. French rockets go up, whichunfold a silk parachute to the air and drift slowly down. They lightup everything as bright as day, their light shines on us and we seeour shadows sharply outlined on the ground. They hover for the spaceof a minute before they burn out. Immediately fresh ones shoot up tothe sky, and again green, red, and blue stars.
"Bombardment," says Kat.
The thunder of the guns swells to a single heavy roar and then breaksup again into separate explosions. The dry bursts of themachine-guns rattle. Above us the air teems with invisible swiftmovement, with howls, pipings, and hisses. They are the smallershells;--and amongst them, booming through the night like an organ,go the great coal-boxes and the heavies. They have a hoarse, distantbellow like a rutting stag and make their way high above the howl andwhistle of the smaller shells. It reminds me of flocks of wild geesewhen I hear them. Last autumn the wild geese flew day after dayacross the path of the shells.
The searchlights begin to sweep the dark sky. They slide along itlike gigantic tapering rulers. One of them pauses, and quivers alittle. Immediately a second is beside him, a black insect is caughtbetween them and tries to escape--the airman. He hesitates, isblinded and falls.
At regular intervals we ram in the iron stakes. Two men hold a rolland the others spool off the barbed wire. It is that awful stuffwith close-set, long spikes. I am not used to unrolling it and tearmy hand.
After a few hours it is done. But there is still some time beforethe lorries come. Most of us lie down and sleep. I try also, but ithas turned too chilly. Near to the sea one is constantly waked bythe cold.
Once I fall fast asleep. Then waking suddenly with a start I do notknow where I am. I see the stars, I see the rockets, and for amoment have the impression that I have fallen asleep at a gardenfête. I don't know whether it is morning or evening, I lie in thepale cradle of the twilight, and listen for soft words which willcome, soft and near--am I crying? I put my hand to my eyes, it is sofantastic, am I a child? Smooth skin:--it lasts only a second, thenI recognize the silhouette of Katczinsky. The old veteran, he sitsquietly and smokes his pipe--a covered pipe of course. When he seesI am awake, he says: "That gave you a fright. It was only anose-cap, it landed in the bushes over there."
I sit up, I feel myself strangely alone. It's good Kat is there. Hegazes thoughtfully at the front and says:
"Mighty fine fire-works if they weren't so dangerous."
One lands behind us. Two recruits jump up terrified. A couple ofminutes later another comes over, nearer this time. Kat knocks outhis pipe. "It makes a glow."
Then it begins in earnest. We crawl away as well as we can in ourhaste. The next lands fair among us. Two fellows cry out. Greenrockets shoot up on the sky-line. Barrage. The mud flies high,fragments whizz past. The crack of the guns is heard long after theroar of the explosions.
Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buriedhis face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of itand try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmetoff and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to mybreast. The little shoulders heave. Shoulders just likeKemmerich's. I let him be. So that the helmet should be of some useI stick it on his behind;--not for a jest, but out of consideration,since that is his highest part. And though there is plenty of meatthere, a shot in it can be damned painful. Besides, a man has to liea whole month on his belly in the hospital, and afterwards he wouldbe almost sure to have a limp.
It's got someone pretty badly. Cries are heard between theexplosions.
At last it grows quiet. The fire has lifted over us and is nowdropping on the reserves. We risk a look. Red rockets shoot up tothe sky. Apparently there's an attack coming.
Where we are it is still quiet. I sit up and shake the recruit bythe shoulder. "All over, kid! It's all right this time."
He looks round him dazedly. "You'll get used to it soon," I tell him.
He sees his helmet and puts it on. Gradually he comes to. Thensuddenly he turns fiery red and looks confused. Cautiously hereaches his hand to his behind and looks at me dismally.
I understand at once: Gun-shy. That wasn't the reason I had stuckhis helmet over it. "That's no disgrace," I reassure him: "Many'sthe man before you has had his pants full after the firstbombardment. Go behind that bush there and throw your underpantsaway. Get along----"
He goes off. Things become quieter, but the cries do not cease."What's up, Albert?" I ask.
"A couple of columns over there have got it in the neck."
The cries continue. It is not men, they could not cry so terribly.
"Wounded horses," says Kat.
It's unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyredcreation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning.
We are pale. Detering stands up. "God! For God's sake! Shootthem!"
He is a farmer and very fond of horses. It gets under his skin.Then as if deliberately the fire dies down again. The screaming ofthe beasts becomes louder. One can no longer distinguish whence inthis now quiet, silvery landscape it comes; ghostly, invisible, it iseverywhere, between heaven and earth it rolls on immeasurably.Detering raves and yells out: "Shoot them! Shoot them, can't you?damn you again!"
"They must look after the men first," says Kat quietly.
We stand up and try to see where it is. If we could only see theanimals we should be able to endure it better. Müller has a pair ofglasses. We see a dark group, bearers with stretchers, and largerblack clumps moving about. Those are the wounded horses. But notall of them. Some gallop away in the distance, fall down, and thenrun on farther. The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out.He becomes tangled in them and falls, then he stands up again.
Detering raises his gun and aims. Kat hits it up in the air. "Areyou mad----?"
Detering trembles and throws his rifle on the ground.
We sit down and hold our ears. But this appalling noise, thesegroans and screams penetrate, they penetrate everywhere.
We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out on us. Wemust get up and run, no matter where, but where these cries can nolonger be heard. And it is not men, only horses.
From the dark group stretchers move off again. Then single shotscrack out. The black heap is convulsed and becomes thinner. Atlast! But still it is not the end. The men cannot overtake thewounded beasts which fly in their pain, their wide open mouths fullof anguish. One of the men goes down on his knee, a shot--one horsedrops--another. The last one props himself on his forelegs and dragshimself round in a circle like a merry-go-round; squatting, it dragsround in circles on its stiffened forelegs, apparently its back isbroken. The soldier runs up and shoots it. Slowly, humbly it sinksto the ground.
We take our hands from our ears. The cries are silenced. Only along-drawn, dying sigh still hangs on the air.
Then again only the rockets, the singing of the shells, and thestars--and they shine out wonderfully.
Detering walks up and down cursing: "Like to know what harm they'vedone." He returns to it once again. His voice is agitated, itsounds almost dignified as he says: "I tell you it is the vilestbaseness to use horses in the war."
We go back. It is time we returned to the lorries. The sky isbecome a bit brighter. Three o'clock in the morning. The breeze isfresh and cool, the pale hour makes our faces look grey.
We trudge onward in single file through the trenches and shell-holesand come again to the zone of mist. Katczinsky is restive, that's abad sign.
"What's up, Kat?" says Kropp.
"I wish I were back home." Home--he means the huts.
"It won't last much longer, Kat."
He is nervous. "I don't know, I don't know----"
We come to the communication-trench and then to the open fields. Thelittle wood reappears; we know every foot of ground here. There'sthe cemetery with the mounds and the black crosses.
That moment it breaks out behind us, swells, roars, and thunders. Weduck down--a cloud of flame shoots up a hundred yards ahead of us.
The next minute under a second explosion part of the wood risesslowly in the air, three or four trees sail up and then crash topieces. The shells begin to hiss like safety-valves--heavy fire----
"Take cover!" yells somebody--"Cover!"
The fields are flat, the wood is too distant and dangerous--the onlycover is the graveyard and the mounds. We stumble across in the darkand as though spirited away every man lies glued behind a mound.
Not a moment too soon. The dark goes mad. It heaves and raves.Darknesses blacker than the night rush on us with giant strides, overus and away. The flames of the explosions light up the graveyard.
There is no escape anywhere. By the light of the shells I try to geta view of the fields. They are a surging sea, daggers of flame fromthe explosions leap up like fountains. It is impossible for anyoneto break through it.
The wood vanishes, it is pounded, crushed, torn to pieces. We muststay here in the grave-yard.
The earth bursts before us. It rains clods. I feel a smack. Mysleeve is torn away by a splinter. I shut my fist. No pain. Stillthat does not reassure me: wounds don't hurt till afterwards. I feelthe arm all over. It is grazed but sound. Now a crack on the skull,I begin to lose consciousness. Like lightning the thought comes tome: Don't faint, sink down in the black broth and immediately come upto the top again. A splinter slashes into my helmet, but hastravelled so far that it does not go through. I wipe the mud out ofmy eyes. A hole is torn up in front of me. Shells hardly ever landin the same hole twice, I'll get into it. With one bound I flingmyself down and lie on the earth as flat as a fish; there it whistlesagain, quickly I crouch together, claw for cover, feel something onthe left, shove in beside it, it gives way, I groan, the earth leaps,the blast thunders in my ears, I creep under the yielding thing,cover myself with it, draw it over me, it is wood, cloth, cover,cover, miserable cover against the whizzing splinters.
I open my eyes--my fingers grasp a sleeve, an arm. A wounded man? Iyell to him--no answer--a dead man. My hand gropes farther,splinters of wood--now I remember again that we are lying in thegraveyard.
But the shelling is stronger than everything. It wipes out thesensibilities, I merely crawl still deeper into the coffin, it shouldprotect me, and especially as Death himself lies in it too.
Before me gapes the shell-hole. I grasp it with my eyes as withfists. With one leap I must be in it. There, I get a smack in theface, a hand clamps on to my shoulder--has the dead man wakedup?--The hand shakes me, I turn my head, in the second of light Istare into the face of Katczinsky, he has his mouth wide open and isyelling. I hear nothing, he rattles me, comes nearer, in a momentarylull his voice reaches me: "Gas--Gaas--Gaaas--Pass it on."
I grab for my gas-mask. Some distance from me there lies someone. Ithink of nothing but this: That fellow there must know:Gaaas--Gaaas----
I call, I lean toward him, I swipe at him with the satchel, hedoesn't see--once again, again--he merely ducks--it's a recruit--Ilook at Kat desperately, he has his mask ready--I pull out mine too,my helmet falls to one side, it slips over my face, I reach the man,his satchel is on the side nearest me, I seize the mask, pull it overhis head, he understands, I let go and with a jump drop back into theshell-hole.
The dull thud of the gas-shells mingles with the crashes of the highexplosives. A bell sounds between the explosions, gongs, and metalclappers warning everyone--Gas--Gas--Gaas.
Someone plumps down behind me, another. I wipe the goggles of mymask clear of the moist breath. It is Kat, Kropp, and someone else.All four of us lie there in heavy, watchful suspense and breathe aslightly as possible.
These first minutes with the mask decide between life and death: isit tightly woven? I remember the awful sights in the hospital: thegas patients who in day-long suffocation cough their burnt lungs upin clots.
Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve, I breathe. The gas stillcreeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows. Like a big, softjellyfish it floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely. Inudge Kat, it is better to crawl out and lie on top than to stay herewhere the gas collects most. But we don't get as far as that; asecond bombardment begins. It is no longer as though the shellsroared; it is the earth itself raging.
With a crash something black bears down on us. It lands close besideus; a coffin thrown up.
I see Kat move and I crawl across. The coffin has hit the fourth manin our hole on his outstretched arm. He tries to tear off hisgas-mask with the other hand. Kropp seizes him just in time, twiststhe hand sharply behind his back and holds it fast.
Kat and I proceed to free the wounded arm. The coffin lid is looseand bursts open, we are easily able to pull it off, we toss thecorpse out, it slides down to the bottom of the shell-hole, then wetry to loosen the under-part.
Fortunately the man swoons and Kropp is able to help us. We nolonger have to be careful, but work away till the coffin gives with asigh before the spade that we have dug in under it.
It has grown lighter. Kat takes a piece of the lid, places it underthe shattered arm, and we wrap all our bandages round it. For themoment we can do no more.
Inside the gas-mask my head booms and roars--it is nigh bursting. Mylungs are tight, they breathe always the same hot, used-up air, theveins on my temples are swollen, I feel I am suffocating.
A grey light filters through to us. I climb out over the edge of theshell-hole. In the dirty twilight lies a leg torn clean off; theboot is quite whole, I take that all in at a glance. Now someonestands up a few yards distant. I polish the windows, in myexcitement they are immediately dimmed again, I peer through them,the man there no longer wears his mask.
I wait some seconds--he has not collapsed--he looks around and makesa few paces--rattling in my throat I tear my mask off too and falldown, the air streams into me like cold water, my eyes are bursting,the wave sweeps over me and extinguishes me.
The shelling has ceased. I drag myself to the crater and tell theothers. They take off their masks. We lift up the wounded man, onetaking his splintered arm. And so we stumble off hastily.
The graveyard is a mass of wreckage. Coffins and corpses lie strewnabout. They have been killed once again; but each of them that wasflung up saved one of us.
The hedge is destroyed, the rails of the light railway are torn upand rise stiffly in the air in great arches. Someone lies in frontof us. We stop; Kropp goes on alone with the wounded man.
The man on the ground is a recruit. His hip is covered with blood;he is so exhausted that I feel for my water-bottle where I have rumand tea. Kat restrains my hand and stoops over him.
"Where's it got you, comrade?"
His eyes move. He is too weak to answer.
We cut off his trousers carefully. He groans. "Gently, gently, itis much better----"
If he has been hit in the stomach he oughtn't to drink anything.There's no vomiting, that's a good sign. We lay the hip bare. It isone mass of mincemeat and bone splinters. The joint has been hit.This lad won't walk any more.
I wet his temples with a moistened finger and give him a swig. Hiseyes move again. We see now that the right arm is bleeding as well.
Kat spreads out two wads of dressing as wide as possible so that theywill cover the wound. I look for something to bind loosely round it.We have nothing more, so I slit up the wounded man's trouser legstill farther in order to use a piece of his underpants as a bandage.But he is wearing none. I now look at him closely. He is thefair-headed boy of a little while ago.
In the meantime Kat has taken a bandage from a dead man's pocket andwe carefully bind the wound. I say to the youngster who looks at usfixedly: "We're going for a stretcher now----"
Then he opens his mouth and whispers: "Stay here----"
"We'll be back again soon," says Kat. "We are only going to get astretcher for you."
We don't know if he understands. He whimpers like a child and plucksat us: "Don't go away----"
Kat looks around and whispers: "Shouldn't we just take a revolver andput an end to it?"
The youngster will hardly survive the carrying, and at the most hewill only last a few days. What he has gone through so far isnothing to what he's in for till he dies. Now he is numb and feelsnothing. In an hour he will become one screaming bundle ofintolerable pain. Every day that he can live will be a howlingtorture. And to whom does it matter whether he has them or not----
I nod. "Yes, Kat, we ought to put him out of his misery."
He stands still a moment. He has made up his mind. We lookround--but we are no longer alone. A little group is gathering, fromthe shell-holes and trenches appear heads.
We get a stretcher.
Kat shakes his head. "Such a kid----" He repeats it: "Younginnocents----"
Our losses are less than was to be expected--five killed and eightwounded. It was in fact quite a short bombardment. Two of our deadlie in the upturned graves. We had merely to throw the earth in onthem.
We go back. We trot off silently in single file one behind theother. The wounded are taken to the dressing-station. The morningis cloudy. The bearers make a fuss about numbers and tickets, thewounded whimper. It begins to rain.
An hour later we reach our lorries and climb in. There is more roomnow than there was.
The rain becomes heavier. We take out waterproof sheets and spreadthem over our heads. The rain rattles down, and flows off at thesides in streams. The lorries bump through the holes, and we rockto and fro in a half-sleep. Two men in the front of the lorry havelong forked poles. They watch for telephone wires which hangcrosswise over the road so densely that they might easily pull ourheads off. The two fellows take them at the right moment on theirpoles and lift them over behind us. We hear their call"Mind--wire--," dip the knee in a half-sleep and straighten up again.
Monotonously the lorries sway, monotonously come the calls,monotonously falls the rain. It falls on our heads and on the headsof the dead up in the line, on the body of the little recruit withthe wound that is so much too big for his hip; it falls onKemmerich's grave; it falls in our hearts.
An explosion sounds somewhere. We wince, our eyes become tense, ourhands are ready to vault over the side of the lorry into the ditch bythe road.
It goes no farther--only the monotonous cry: "Mind--wire,"--our kneesbend--we are again half asleep.
CHAPTER V
Killing each separate louse is a tedious business when a man hashundreds. The little beasts are hard and the everlasting crackingwith one's fingernails very soon becomes wearisome. So Tjaden hasrigged up the lid of a boot-polish tin with a piece of wire over thelighted stump of a candle. The lice are simply thrown into thislittle pan. Crack! and they're done for.
We sit around with our shirts on our knees, our bodies naked to thewarm air and our hands at work. Haie has a particularly fine brandof louse: they have a red cross on their heads. He suggests that hebrought them back with him from the hospital at Thourhout, where theyattended personally on a surgeon-general. He says he means to usethe fat that slowly accumulates in the tin-lid for polishing hisboots, and roars with laughter for half an hour at his own joke.
But he hasn't much success to-day; we are too preoccupied withanother affair.
The rumour has materialized. Himmelstoss has come. He appearedyesterday; we've already heard the well-known voice. He seems tohave overdone it with a couple of young recruits on the ploughedfield at home, and unknown to him the son of the local magistrate waswatching. That cooked his goose.
He will meet some surprises here. Tjaden has been meditating forhours what to say to him. Haie gazes thoughtfully at his great pawsand winks at me. The thrashing was the high water mark of his life.He tells me he often dreams of it. Kropp and Müller are amusingthemselves. From somewhere or other, probably thepioneer-cook-house, Kropp has bagged for himself a mess-tin full ofbeans. Müller squints hungrily into it but checks himself and says:"Albert, what would you do if it were suddenly peace-time again?"
"There won't be any civil life," says Albert bluntly.
"Well, but if--" persists Müller, "what would you do?"
"Clear out of this!" growls Kropp.
"Of course. And then what?"
"Get drunk," says Albert.
"Don't talk rot, I mean seriously----"
"So do I," says Kropp, "what else should a man do?"
Kat becomes interested. He levies tribute on Kropp's tin of beans,swallows some, then considers for a while and says: "You might getdrunk first, of course, but then you'd take the next train for homeand mother. Peace-time, man, Albert----"
He fumbles in his oil-cloth pocket-book for a photograph and suddenlyshows it all round. "My old people!" Then he puts it back andswears: "Damned lousy war----"
"It's all very well for you to talk," I tell him. "You've a wife andchildren."
"True," he nods, "and I have to see to it that they've something toeat."
We laugh. "They won't lack for that, Kat, you'd scrounge it fromsomewhere."
Müller is insatiable and gives himself no peace. He wakes HaieWesthus out of his dream. "Haie, what would you do if it was peacetime?"
"Give you a kick in the backside for the way you talk," I say. "Howdoes it come about exactly?"
"How does the cow-shit come on the roof?" retorts Müller laconically,and turns to Haie Westhus again.
It is too much for Haie. He shakes his freckled head:
"You mean when the war's over?"
"Exactly. You've said it."
"Well, there'd be women of course, eh?"--Haie licks his lips.
"Sure."
"By Jove yes," says Haie, his face melting, "then I'd grab some goodbuxom dame, some real kitchen wench with plenty to get hold of, youknow, and jump straight into bed. Just you think, boys, a realfeather-bed with a spring mattress; I wouldn't put trousers on againfor a week."
Everyone is silent. The picture is too good. Our flesh creeps. Atlast Müller pulls himself together and says:
"And then what?"
A pause. Then Haie explains rather awkwardly: "If I were a non-com.I'd stay with the Prussians and serve out my time."
"Haie, you've got a screw loose, surely!" I say.
"Have you ever dug peat?" he retorts good-naturedly. "You try it."
Then he pulls a spoon out of the top of his boot and reaches overinto Kropp's mess-tin.
"It can't be worse than digging trenches," I venture.
Haie chews and grins: "It lasts longer though. And there's nogetting out of it either."
"But, man, surely it's better at home."
"Some ways," says he, and with open mouth sinks into a day-dream.
You can see what he is thinking. There is the mean little hut on themoors, the hard work on the heath from morning till night in theheat, the miserable pay, the dirty labourer's clothes.
"In the army in peace time you've nothing to trouble about," he goeson, "your food's found every day, or else you kick up a row; you've abed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do yournon-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the eveningyou're a free man and go off to the pub."
Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it.
"And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become avillage bobby, and you can walk about the whole day."
He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd betreated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well inwith a bobby."
"You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat.
Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still lingerover the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, thevillage bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls,the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in theale-house----
He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls:"What silly questions you do ask."
He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic.
"What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp.
Tjaden thinks only of one thing. "See to it that Himmelstoss doesn'tget past me."
Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into himwith a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were inyour place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you couldgrind him till the water in his backside boils."
"And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a bornschoolmaster with all his questions.
Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks.He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would gostraight on with the harvesting."
Then he gets up and walks off.
He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They've alreadytaken away two of his horses. Every day he reads the papers thatcome, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg.They haven't brought the hay in yet.
At this moment Himmelstoss appears. He comes straight up to ourgroup. Tjaden's face turns red. He stretches his length on thegrass and shuts his eyes in embarrassment.
Himmelstoss is a little hesitant, his gait becomes slower. Then hemarches up to us. No one makes any motion to stand up. Kropp looksup at him with interest.
He continues to stand in front of us and wait. As no one saysanything he launches a "Well?"
A couple of seconds go by. Apparently Himmelstoss doesn't quite knowwhat to do. He would like most to set us all on the run again. Buthe seems to have learned already that the front line isn't a paradeground. He tries it on though, and by addressing himself to oneinstead of to all of us hopes to get some response. Kropp isnearest, so he favours him.
"Well, you here too?"
But Albert's no friend of his. "A bit longer than you, I fancy," heretorts.
The red moustache twitches: "You don't recognize me any more, what?"
Tjaden now opens his eyes. "I do though."
Himmelstoss turns to him: "Tjaden, isn't it?"
Tjaden lifts his head. "And do you know what you are?"
Himmelstoss is disconcerted. "Since when have we become so familiar?I don't remember that we ever slept in the gutter together?"
He has no idea what to make of the situation. He didn't expect thisopen hostility. But he is on his guard: someone has already dinnedsome rot into him about getting a shot in the back.
The question about the gutter makes Tjaden so mad that he becomesalmost witty: "No, you slept there by yourself."
Himmelstoss begins to boil. But Tjaden gets in ahead of him. Hemust bring off his insult: "Wouldn't you like to know what you are?A dirty hound, that's what you are. I've been wanting to tell youthat for a long time."
The satisfaction of months shines in his dull pig's eyes as he spitsout: Dirty hound!
Himmelstoss lets fly too, now. "What's that, you muck-rake, youdirty peat-stealer? Stand up there, bring your heels together whenyour superior officer speaks to you."
Tjaden winks solemnly. "You take a run and jump at yourself,Himmelstoss."
Himmelstoss is a raging book of army regulations. The Kaisercouldn't be more insulted. "Tjaden, I command you, as your superiorofficer: Stand up!"
"Anything else you would like?" asks Tjaden.
"Will you obey my order or not?"
Tjaden replies, without knowing it, in the well-known classicalphrase.
At the same time he ventilates his backside.
"I'll have you court-martialled," storms Himmelstoss.
We watch him disappear in the direction of the Orderly Room. Haieand Tjaden burst into a regular peat-digger's bellow. Haie laughs somuch that he dislocates his jaw, and suddenly stands there helplesswith his mouth wide open. Albert has to put it back again by givingit a blow with his fist.
Kat is troubled: "If he reports you, it'll be pretty serious."
"Do you think he will?" asks Tjaden.
"Sure to," I say.
"The least you'll get will be five days close arrest," says Kat.
That doesn't worry Tjaden. "Five days clink are five days rest."
"And if they send you to the Fortress?" urges the thoroughgoingMüller.
"Well, for the time being the war will be over so far as I amconcerned."
Tjaden is a cheerful soul. There aren't any worries for him. Hegoes off with Haie and Leer so that they won't find him in the firstflush of the excitement.
Müller hasn't finished yet. He tackles Kropp again.
"Albert, if you were really at home now, what would you do?"
Kropp is contented now and more accommodating:
"How many of us were there in the class exactly?"
We count up: out of twenty, seven are dead, four wounded, one in amad-house. That makes twelve privates.
"Three of them are lieutenants," says Müller. "Do you think theywould still let Kantorek sit on them?"
We guess not: we wouldn't let ourselves be sat on for that matter.
"What do you mean by the three-fold theme in 'William Tell'?" saysKropp reminiscently, and roars with laughter.
"What was the purpose of the Poetic League of Göttingen?" asks Müllersuddenly and earnestly.
"How many children had Charles the Bald?" I interrupt gently.
"You'll never make anything of your life, Bäumer," croaks Müller.
"When was the Battle of Zana?" Kropp wants to know.
"You lack the studious mind, Kropp, sit down, three minus----" I wink.
"What offices did Lycurgus consider the most important for thestate?" asks Müller, pretending to take off his pince-nez.
"Does it go: 'We Germans fear God and none else in the whole world,'or 'We, the Germans, fear God and----'" I submit.
"How many inhabitants has Melbourne?" asks Müller.
"How do you expect to succeed in life if you don't know that?" I askAlbert hotly.
Which he caps with: "What is meant by Cohesion?"
We remember mighty little of all that rubbish. Anyway, it has neverbeen the slightest use to us. At school nobody ever taught us how tolight a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be madewith wet wood--nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the bellybecause there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs.
Müller says thoughtfully: "What's the use. We'll have to go back andsit on the forms again."
I consider that out of the question. "We might take a special exam."
"That needs preparation. And if you do get through, what then? Astudent's life isn't any better. If you have no money, you have towork like the devil."
"It's a bit better. But it's rot all the same, everything they teachyou."
Kropp supports me: "How can a man take all that stuff seriously whenhe's once been out here?"
"Still you must have an occupation of some sort," insists Müller, asthough he were Kantorek himself.
Albert cleans his nails with a knife. We are surprised at thisdelicacy. But it is merely pensiveness. He puts the knife away andcontinues: "That's just it. Kat and Detering and Haie will go backto their jobs because they had them already. Himmelstoss too. Butwe never had any. How will we ever get used to one after this,here?"--he makes a gesture toward the front.
"We'll want a private income, and then we'll be able to live byourselves in a wood," I say, but at once feel ashamed of this absurdidea.
"But what will really happen when we go back?" wonders Müller, andeven he is troubled.
Kropp gives a shrug. "I don't know. Let's get back first, thenwe'll find out."
We are all utterly at a loss. "What could we do?" I ask.
"I don't want to do anything," replies Kropp wearily. "You'll bedead one day, so what does it matter? I don't think we'll ever goback."
"When I think about it, Albert," I say after a while, rolling over onmy back, "when I hear the word 'peace time,' it goes to my head; andif it really came, I think I would do some unimaginablething--something, you know, that it's worth having lain here in themuck for. But I can't even imagine anything. All I do know is thatthis business about professions and studies and salaries and soon--it makes me sick, it is and always was disgusting. I don't seeanything--I don't see anything at all, Albert."
All at once everything seems to me confused and hopeless.
Kropp feels it too. "It will go pretty hard with us all. But nobodyat home seems to worry much about it. Two years of shells andbombs--a man won't peel that off as easy as a sock."
We agree that it's the same for everyone; not only for us here, buteverywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and toothers less. It is the common fate of our generation.
Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything."
He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take theworld by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From ourlife. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; andwe had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion,burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving,from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe inthe war.
The Orderly Room shows signs of life. Himmelstoss seems to havestirred them up. At the head of the column trots the fatsergeant-major. It is queer that almost all pay-sergeant-majors arefat.
Himmelstoss follows him, thirsting for vengeance. His boots gleam inthe sun.
We get up.
"Where's Tjaden?" the sergeant puffs.
No one knows, of course. Himmelstoss glowers at us wrathfully. "Youknow very well. You won't say, that's the fact of the matter. Outwith it!"
Fatty looks round enquiringly; but Tjaden is not to be seen. Hetries another way.
"Tjaden will report at the Orderly Room in ten minutes."
Then he steams off with Himmelstoss in his wake.
"I have a feeling that next time we go up wiring I'll be letting abundle of wire fall on Himmelstoss's leg," hints Kropp.
"We'll have quite a lot of jokes with him," laughs Müller.--
That is our sole ambition: to knock the conceit out of a postman.--
I go into the hut and put Tjaden wise. He disappears.
Then we change our possy and lie down again to play cards. We knowhow to do that: to play cards, to swear, and to fight. Not much fortwenty years;--and yet too much for twenty years.
Half an hour later Himmelstoss is back again. Nobody pays anyattention to him. He asks for Tjaden. We shrug our shoulders.
"Then you'd better find him," he persists. "Haven't you been to lookfor him?"
Kropp lies back in the grass and says: "Have you ever been out herebefore?"
"That's none of your business," retorts Himmelstoss. "I expect ananswer."
"Very good," says Kropp, getting up. "See up there where thoselittle white clouds are. Those are anti-aircraft. We were overthere yesterday. Five dead and eight wounded. It was a lot of fun.Next time, when you go up with us, before they die the fellows willcome up to you, click their heels, and ask stiffly: 'Please may I go?Please may I hop it? We've been waiting here a long time for someonelike you.'"
He sits down again and Himmelstoss disappears like a comet.
"Three days C.B.," Kat conjectures.
"Next time I'll let fly," I say to Albert.
But that is the end. The case comes up for trial in the evening. Inthe Orderly Room sits our Lieutenant, Bertink, and calls us in oneafter another.
I have to appear as a witness and explain the reason of Tjaden'sinsubordination.
The story of the bed-wetting makes an impression. Himmelstoss isrecalled and I repeat my statement.
"Is that right?" Bertink asks Himmelstoss.
He tries to evade the question, but in the end has to confess, forKropp tells the same story.
"Why didn't someone report the matter, then?" asks Bertink.
We are silent: he must know himself how much use it is reporting suchthings in the army. It isn't usual to make complaints in the army.He understands it all right though, and lectures Himmelstoss, makingit plain to him that the front isn't a parade-ground. Then comesTjaden's turn, who gets a long sermon and three days open arrest. Hegives Kropp a wink and one day's open arrest. "It can't be helped,"he says to him regretfully. He is a decent fellow.
Open arrest is quite pleasant. The clink was once a fowl-house;there we can visit the prisoners, we know how to manage it. Closearrest would have meant the cellar.
They used to tie us to a tree, but that is forbidden now. In manyways we are treated quite like men.
An hour after Tjaden and Kropp are settled in behind theirwire-netting we make our way in to them. Tjaden greets us crowing.Then we play skat far into the night. Tjaden wins of course, thelucky wretch.
When we break up Kat says to me: "What do you say to some roastgoose?"
"Not bad," I agree.
We climb up on a munition-waggon. The ride costs us two cigarettes.Kat has marked the spot exactly. The shed belongs to a regimentalheadquarters. I agree to get the goose and receive my instructions.The out-house is behind the wall and the door shuts with just a peg.
Kat hoists me up. I rest my foot in his hands and climb over thewall. Kat keeps watch below.
I wait a few moments to accustom my eyes to the darkness. Then Irecognize the shed. Softly I steal across, lift the peg, pull it outand open the door.
I distinguish two white patches. Two geese, that's bad: if I grabone the other will cackle. Well, both of them--if I'm quick, it canbe done.
I make a jump. I catch hold of one and the next instant the second.Like a madman I bash their heads against the wall to stun them. ButI haven't quite enough weight. The beasts cackle and strike out withtheir feet and wings. I fight desperately, but Lord! what a kick agoose has! They struggle and I stagger about. In the dark thesewhite patches are terrifying. My arms have grown wings and I'malmost afraid of going up into the sky, as though I held a couple ofcaptive balloons in my fists.
Then the row begins; one of them gets his breath and goes off like analarm clock. Before I can do anything, something comes in fromoutside; I feel a blow, lie outstretched on the floor, and hear awfulgrowls. A dog. I steal a glance to the side, he makes a snap at mythroat. I lie still and tuck my chin into my collar.
It's a bull dog. After an eternity he withdraws his head and sitsdown beside me. But if I make the least movement he growls. Iconsider. The only thing to do is to get hold of my small revolver,and that too before anyone arrives. Inch by inch I move my handtoward it.
I have the feeling that it lasts an hour. The slightest movement andthen an awful growl; I lie still, then try again. When at last Ihave the revolver my hand starts to tremble. I press it against theground and then say over to myself: Jerk the revolver up, fire beforehe has a chance to grab, and then jump up.
Slowly I take a deep breath and become calmer. Then I hold mybreath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to oneside, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels overone of the damned geese.
At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over thewall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up againas lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Tenpaces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as hesees me we run.
At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to thatin a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. Ifetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a smalldeserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single windowspace is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plateset on some bricks. We kindle a fire.
Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully toone side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with theinscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire." The sound of thegun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of thefire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes aheavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear astifled cry. A hut must have been hit.
Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But nolight that could be observed shows from us.
We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats,cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, butI believe we have a more complete communion with one another thaneven lovers have.
We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night andthe circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger,the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to oneanother, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lightsand shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he knowof me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thoughtin common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, andare so intimate that we do not even speak.
It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat.So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down andsleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut.
The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yetlinger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise theladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--andat the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voiceutters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots,belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under thehigh heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for everpressing on under the wide night sky.
A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress himhe would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shutheart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgottenall else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country withflowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sightsthere that he has not forgotten, because he never possessedthem--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there?
Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic,stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smilesand goes back to the fire.
Then he says: "It's done."
"Yes, Kat."
I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. Wetake out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cutsoff a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eatslowly and with gusto.
"How does it taste, Kat?"
"Good! And yours?"
"Good, Kat."
We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces.Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lotleft.
"How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?"
"Sure," says he.
We carve off a portion and wrap it up carefully in newspaper. Therest we thought of taking over to the hut. Kat laughs, and simplysays: "Tjaden."
I agree, we will have to take it all.
So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack awaythe feathers.
Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy withtheir teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like amouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smackshis lips:
"May I never forget you!"
We go to our hut. Again there is the lofty sky with the stars andthe oncoming dawn, and I pass on beneath it, a soldier with big bootsand a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning--but by myside, stooping and angular, goes Kat, my comrade.
The outlines of the huts are upon us in the dawn like a dark, deepsleep.
CHAPTER VI
There are rumours of an offensive. We go up to the front two daysearlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled school-house.Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow,unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of fir, and pine,and the forest. There are at least a hundred.
"That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished.
"They're for us," growls Detering.
"Don't talk rot," says Kat to him angrily.
"You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin," grins Tjaden,"they'll slip you a water-proof sheet for your old Aunt Sally of acarcase."
The others jest too, unpleasant jests, but what else can a mando?--The coffins are really for us. The organization surpassesitself in that kind of thing.
Ahead of us everything is simmering. The first night we try to getour bearings. When it is fairly quiet we can hear the transportsbehind the enemy lines rolling ceaselessly until dawn. Kat says theydo not go back but are bringing up troops--troops, munitions, andshells.
The English artillery has been strengthened, that we can detect atonce. There are at least four more batteries of twenty-fives to theright of the farm, and behind the poplars they have put intrench-mortars. Besides these they have brought up a number of thoselittle French beasts with instantaneous fuses.
We are in low spirits. After we have been in the dug-outs two hoursour own shells begin to fall in the trench. This is the third timein four weeks. If it were simply a mistake in aim no one would sayanything, but the truth is that the barrels are worn out. The shotsare often so uncertain that they land within our own lines. To-nighttwo of our men were wounded by them.
The front is a cage in which we must await fearfully whatever mayhappen. We lie under the network of arching shells and live in asuspense of uncertainty. Over us Chance hovers. If a shot comes, wecan duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where itwill fall.
It is this Chance that makes us indifferent. A few months ago I wassitting in a dug-out playing skat; after a while I stood up and wentto visit some friends in another dug-out. On my return nothing morewas to be seen of the first one, it had been blown to pieces by adirect hit. I went back to the second and arrived just in time tolend a hand digging it out. In the interval it had been buried.
It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that Imight have been hit. In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed toatoms and in the open may survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed.No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believesin Chance and trusts his luck.
We must look out for our bread. The rats have become much morenumerous lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition.Detering says it is a sure sign of a coming bombardment.
The rats here are particularly repulsive, they are so fat--the kindwe call corpse-rats. They have shocking, evil, naked faces, and itis nauseating to see their long, nude tails.
They seem to be mighty hungry. Almost every man has had his breadgnawed. Kropp wrapped his in his waterproof sheet and put it underhis head, but he cannot sleep because they run over his face to getat it. Detering meant to outwit them: he fastened a thin wire to theroof and suspended his bread from it. During the night when heswitched on his pocket-torch he saw the wire swinging to and fro. Onthe bread was riding a fat rat.
At last we put a stop to it. We cannot afford to throw the breadaway, because already we have practically nothing left to eat in themorning, so we carefully cut off the bits of bread that the animalshave gnawed.
The slices we cut off are heaped together in the middle of the floor.Each man takes out his spade and lies down prepared to strike.Detering, Kropp, and Kat hold their pocket-lamps ready.
After a few minutes we hear the first shuffling and tugging. Itgrows, now it is the sound of many little feet. Then the torchesswitch on and every man strikes at the heap, which scatters with arush. The result is good. We toss the bits of rat over the parapetand again lie in wait.
Several times we repeat the process. At last the beasts get wise toit, or perhaps they have scented the blood. They return no more.Nevertheless, before morning the remainder of the bread on the floorhas been carried off.
In the adjoining sector they attacked two large cats and a dog, bitthem to death and devoured them.
Next day there is an issue of Edamer cheese. Each man gets almost aquarter of a cheese. In one way that is all to the good, for Edameris tasty--but in another way it is vile, because the fat red ballshave long been a sign of a bad time coming. Our forebodings increaseas rum is served out. We drink it of course; but are not greatlycomforted.
For days we loaf about and make war on the rats. Ammunition andhand-grenades become more plentiful. We even overhaul thebayonets--that is to say, the ones that have a saw on the blunt edge.If the fellows over there catch a man with one of those he's killedat sight. In the next sector some of our men were found whose noseswere cut off and their eyes poked out with their own saw-bayonets.Their mouths and noses were stuffed with sawdust so that theysuffocated.
Some of the recruits have bayonets of this kind; we take them awayand give them the ordinary kind.
But the bayonet has practically lost its importance. It is usuallythe fashion now to charge with bombs and spades only. The sharpenedspade is a more handy and many-sided weapon; not only can it be usedfor jabbing a man under the chin, but it is much better for strikingwith because of its greater weight, and if one hits between the neckand shoulder it easily cleaves as far down as the chest. The bayonetfrequently jams on the thrust and then a man has to kick hard on theother fellow's belly to pull it out again; and in the interval he mayeasily get one himself. And what's more the blade often gets brokenoff.
At night they send over gas. We expect the attack to follow and liewith our masks on, ready to tear them off as soon as the first shadowappears.
Dawn approaches without anything happening--only the everlasting,nerve-wracking roll behind the enemy lines, trains, trains, lorries,lorries; but what are they concentrating? Our artillery fires on itcontinually, but still it does not cease.
We have tired faces and avoid each other's eyes. "It will be likethe Somme," says Kat gloomily. "There we were shelled steadily forseven days and nights." Kat has lost all his fun since we have beenhere, which is bad, for Kat is an old front-hog, and can smell whatis coming. Only Tjaden seems pleased with the good rations and therum; he thinks we might even go back to rest without anythinghappening at all.
It almost looks like it. Day after day passes. At night I squat inthe listening-post. Above me the rockets and parachute-lights shootup and float down again. I am cautious and tense, my heart thumps.My eyes turn again and again to the luminous dial of my watch; thehands will not budge. Sleep hangs on my eyelids, I work my toes inmy boots in order to keep awake. Nothing happens till I amrelieved;--only the everlasting rolling over there. Gradually wegrow calmer and play skat and poker continually. Perhaps we will belucky.
All day the sky is hung with observation balloons. There is a rumourthat the enemy are going to put tanks over and use low-flying planesfor the attack. But that interests us less than what we hear of thenew flame-throwers.
We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy fireis falling on us. We crouch into corners. We distinguish shells ofevery calibre.
Each man lays hold of his things and looks again every minute toreassure himself that they are still there. The dug-out heaves, thenight roars and flashes. We look at each other in the momentaryflashes of light, and with pale faces and pressed lips shake ourheads.
Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down the parapet,rooting up the embankment and demolishing the upper layers ofconcrete. When a shell lands in the trench we note how the hollow,furious blast is like a blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey.Already by morning a few of the recruits are green and vomiting.They are too inexperienced.
Slowly the grey light trickles into the post and pales the flashes ofthe shells. Morning is come. The explosion of mines mingles withthe gun-fire. That is the most dementing convulsion of all. Thewhole region where they go up becomes one grave.
The reliefs go out, the observers stagger in, covered with dirt, andtrembling. One lies down in silence in the corner and eats, theother, a reservist-reinforcement, sobs; twice he has been flung overthe parapet by the blast of the explosions without getting any morethan shell-shock.
The recruits are eyeing him. We must watch them, these things arecatching, already some lips begin to quiver. It is good that it isgrowing daylight; perhaps the attack will come before noon.
The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the rear too.As far as one can see it spouts fountains of mud and iron. A widebelt is being raked.
The attack does not come, but the bombardment continues. Slowly webecome mute. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make ourselvesunderstood.
Our trench is almost gone. At many places it is only eighteen incheshigh, it is broken by holes, and craters, and mountains of earth. Ashell lands square in front of our post. At once it is dark. We areburied and must dig ourselves out. After an hour the entrance isclear again, and we are calmer because we have had something to do.
Our company commander scrambles in and reports that two dug-outs aregone. The recruits calm themselves when they see him. He says thatan attempt will be made to bring up food this evening.
That sounds reassuring. No one had thought of it except Tjaden. Nowthe outside world seems to draw a little nearer: if food can bebrought up, think the recruits, then it can't really be so bad.
We do not disabuse them; we know that food is as important asammunition and only for that reason must be brought up.
But it miscarries. A second party goes out, and it also turns back.Finally Kat tries, and even he reappears without accomplishinganything. No one gets through, not even a fly is small enough to getthrough such a barrage.
We pull in our belts tighter and chew every mouthful three times aslong. Still the food does not last out; we are damnably hungry. Itake out a scrap of bread, eat the white and put the crust back in myknapsack; from time to time I nibble at it.
The night is unbearable. We cannot sleep, but stare ahead of us anddoze. Tjaden regrets that we wasted the gnawed pieces of bread onthe rats. We would gladly have them again to eat now. We are shortof water, too, but not seriously yet.
Towards morning, while it is still dark, there is some excitement.Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing rats that try tostorm the walls. Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells andcurses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloadsitself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, thebeasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another.
The onslaught has exhausted us. We lie down to wait again. It is amarvel that our post has had no casualties so far. It is one of thefew deep dug-outs.
A corporal creeps in; he has a loaf of bread with him. Three peoplehave had the luck to get through during the night and bring someprovisions. They say the bombardment extends undiminished as far asthe artillery lines. It is a mystery where the enemy gets all hisshells.
We wait and wait. By midday what I expected happens. One of therecruits has a fit. I have been watching him for a long time,grinding his teeth and opening and shutting his fists. These hunted,protruding eyes, we know them too well. During the last few hours hehas had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed like arotten tree.
Now he stands up, stealthily creeps across the floor, hesitates amoment and then glides towards the door. I intercept him and say:"Where are you going?"
"I'll be back in a minute," says he, and tries to push past me.
"Wait a bit, the shelling will stop soon."
He listens and for a moment his eye becomes clear. Then again he hasthe glowering eyes of a mad dog, he is silent, he shoves me aside.
"One minute, lad," I say. Kat notices. Just as the recruit shakesme off Kat jumps in and we hold him.
Then he begins to rave: "Leave me alone, let me go out, I will goout!"
He won't listen to anything and hits out, his mouth is wet and poursout words, half choked, meaningless words. It is a case ofclaustrophobia, he feels as though he is suffocating here and wantsto get out at any price. If we let him go he would run abouteverywhere regardless of cover. He is not the first.
Though he raves and his eyes roll, it can't be helped, we have togive him a hiding to bring him to his senses. We do it quickly andmercilessly, and at last he sits down quietly. The others haveturned pale; let's hope it deters them. This bombardment is too muchfor the poor devils, they have been sent straight from arecruiting-depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an oldsoldier's hair grey.
After this affair the sticky, close atmosphere works more than everon our nerves. We sit as if in our graves waiting only to be closedin.
Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in allits joints under a direct hit, fortunately only a light one that theconcrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, thewalls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud, and dust fly everywhere.Sulphur fumes pour in.
If we were in one of those light dug-outs that they have beenbuilding lately instead of this deep one, not one of us would now bealive.
But the effect is bad enough even so. The recruit starts to raveagain and two others follow suit. One jumps up and rushes out, wehave trouble with the other two. I start after the one who escapesand wonder whether to shoot him in the leg--then it shrieks again, Ifling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench isplastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits ofuniform. I scramble back.
The first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts hishead against the wall like a goat. We must try to-night to take himto the rear. Meanwhile we bind him, but in such a way that in caseof attack he can be released at once.
Kat suggests a game of skat: it is easier when a man has something todo. But it is no use, we listen for every explosion that comesclose, miscount the tricks, and fail to follow suit. We have to giveit up. We sit as though in a hissing boiler that is being belabouredfrom without on all sides.
Night again. We are deadened by the strain--a deadly tension thatscrapes along one's spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse tomove, our hands tremble, our bodies are a thin skin stretchedpainfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible,bursting roar. We have neither flesh nor muscles any longer, we darenot look at one another for fear of some incalculable thing. So weshut our teeth--it will end--it will end--perhaps we will comethrough.
Suddenly the nearer explosions cease. The shelling continues but ithas lifted and falls behind us, our trench is free. We seize thehand-grenades, pitch them out in front of the dug-out and jump afterthem. The bombardment has stopped and a heavy barrage now fallsbehind us. The attack has come.
No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still bemen; but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, andfifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position and barking.
The wire-entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer someobstacle. We see the storm-troops coming. Our artillery opens fire.Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. The charge works its way across.Haie and Kropp begin with the hand-grenades. They throw as fast asthey can, others pass them, the handles with the strings alreadypulled. Haie throws seventy-five yards, Kropp sixty, it has beenmeasured, the distance is important. The enemy as they run cannot domuch before they are within forty yards.
We recognize the distorted faces, the smooth helmets: they areFrench. They have already suffered heavily when they reach theremnants of the barbed wire entanglements. A whole line has gonedown before our machine-guns; then we have a lot of stoppages andthey come nearer.
I see one of them, his face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. Hisbody collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were praying.Then his body drops clean away and only his hands with the stumps ofhis arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.
The moment we are about to retreat three faces rise up from theground in front of us. Under one of the helmets a dark pointed beardand two eyes that are fastened on me. I raise my hand, but I cannotthrow into those strange eyes; for one mad moment the whole slaughterwhirls like a circus round me, and these two eyes that are alonemotionless; then the head rises up, a hand, a movement, and myhand-grenade flies through the air and into him.
We make for the rear, pull wire cradles into the trench and leavebombs behind us with the string pulled, which ensure us a fieryretreat. The machine-guns are already firing from the next position.
We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselvesagainst annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs,what do we know of men in this moment when Death with hands andhelmets is hunting us down--now, for the first time in three days wecan see his face, now, for the first time in three days we can opposehim; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting onthe scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to saveourselves and be revenged.
We crouch behind every corner, behind every barrier of barbed wire,and hurl heaps of explosives at the feet of the advancing enemybefore we run. The blast of the hand-grenades impinges powerfully onour arms and legs; crouching like cats we run on, overwhelmed by thiswave that bears us along, that fills us with ferocity, turning usinto thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils; thiswave that multiplies our strength with fear and madness and greed oflife, seeking and fighting for nothing but our deliverance. If yourown father came over with them you would not hesitate to fling a bombinto him.
The forward trenches have been abandoned. Are they still trenches?They are blown to pieces, annihilated--there are only broken bits oftrenches, holes linked by tracks; nests of craters, that is all. Butthe enemy's casualties increase. They did not count on so muchresistance.
It is nearly noon. The sun blazes hotly, the sweat stings in oureyes, we wipe it off on our sleeves and often blood with it. At lastwe reach a trench that is in a somewhat better condition. It ismanned and ready for the counter-attack, it receives us. Our gunsopen up in full blast and cut off the enemy attack.
The lines behind us stop. They can advance no farther. The attackis crushed by our artillery. We watch. The fire lifts a hundredyards and we break forward. Beside me a lance-corporal has his headtorn off. He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts from hisneck like a fountain.
It does not come quite to hand-to-hand fighting; they are drivenback. We arrive once again at our shattered trench and pass onbeyond it.
Oh, this turning back again! We reach the shelter of the reservesand yearn to creep in and disappear;--but instead we must turn roundand plunge again into the horror. If we were not automata at thatmoment we would continue lying there, exhausted, and without will.But we are swept forward again, powerless, madly savage and raging;we will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies, their rifles andbombs are aimed against us, and if we don't destroy them, they willdestroy us.
The brown earth, the torn, blasted earth, with a greasy shine underthe sun's rays; the earth is the background of this restless, gloomyworld of automatons, our gasping is the scratching of a quill, ourlips are dry, our heads are debauched with stupor--thus we staggerforward, and into our pierced and shattered souls bores the torturingimage of the brown earth with the greasy sun and the convulsed anddead soldiers, who lie there--it can't be helped--who cry and clutchat our legs as we spring away over them.
We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly controlourselves when our hunted glance lights on the form of some otherman. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, somedreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill.
A young Frenchman lags behind, he is overtaken, he puts up his hands,in one he still holds his revolver--does he mean to shoot or to givehimself up?--a blow from a spade cleaves through his face. A secondsees it and tries to run farther; a bayonet jabs into his back. Heleaps in the air, his arms thrown wide, his mouth wide open, yelling;he staggers, in his back the bayonet quivers. A third throws awayhis rifle, cowers down with his hands before his eyes. He is leftbehind with a few other prisoners to carry off the wounded.
Suddenly in the pursuit we reach the enemy line.
We are so close on the heels of our retreating enemies that we reachit almost at the same time as they. In this way we suffer fewcasualties. A machine-gun barks, but is silenced with a bomb.Nevertheless, the couple of seconds has sufficed to give us fivestomach wounds. With the butt of his rifle Kat smashes to pulp theface of one of the unwounded machine-gunners. We bayonet the othersbefore they have time to get out their bombs. Then thirstily wedrink the water they have for cooling the gun.
Everywhere wire-cutters are snapping, planks are thrown across theentanglements, we jump through the narrow entrances into thetrenches. Haie strikes his spade into the neck of a giganticFrenchman and throws the first hand-grenade; we duck behind abreastwork for a few seconds, then the whole section of trench beforeus is empty. The next throw whizzes obliquely over the corner andclears a passage; as we run past we toss handfuls down into thedug-outs, the earth shudders, it crashes, dully and stifled, westumble over slippery lumps of flesh, over yielding bodies; I fallinto an open belly on which lies a clean, new officer's cap.
The fight ceases. We lose touch with the enemy. We cannot stay herelong but must retire under cover of our artillery to our ownposition. No sooner do we know this than we dive into the nearestdug-outs, and with the utmost haste seize on whatever provisions wecan see, especially the tins of corned beef and butter, before weclear out.
We get back pretty well. There has been no further attack by theenemy. We lie for an hour panting and resting before anyone speaks.We are so completely played out that in spite of our great hunger wedo not think of the provisions. Then gradually we become somethinglike men again.
The corned beef over there is famous along the whole front.Occasionally it has been the chief reason for a flying raid on ourpart, for our nourishment is generally very bad; we have a constanthunger.
We bagged five tins altogether. The fellows over there are welllooked after; it seems a luxury to us with our hunger-pangs, ourturnip jam, and meat so scarce that we simply grab at it. Haie hasscored a thin loaf of white French bread, and stuck it in behind hisbelt like a spade. It is a bit bloody at one corner, but that can becut off.
It is a good thing we have something decent to eat at last; we stillhave a use for all our strength. Enough to eat is just as valuableas a good dug-out; it can save our lives; that is the reason we areso greedy for it.
Tjaden has captured two water-bottles full of cognac. We pass themround.
The evening benediction begins. Night comes, out of the craters risethe mists. It looks as though the holes were full of ghostlysecrets. The white vapour creeps painfully round before it venturesto steal away over the edge. Then long streaks stretch from craterto crater.
It is chilly. I am on sentry and stare into the darkness. Mystrength is exhausted as always after an attack, and so it is hardfor me to be alone with my thoughts. They are not properly thoughts;they are memories which in my weakness turn homeward and strangelymove me.
The parachute-lights shoot upwards--and I see a picture, a summerevening, I am in the cathedral cloister and look at the tall rosetrees that bloom in the middle of the little cloister garden wherethe monks lie buried. Around the walls are the stone carvings of theStations of the Cross. No one is there. A great quietness rules inthis blossoming quadrangle, the sun lies warm on the heavy greystones, I place my hand upon them and feel the warmth. At theright-hand corner the green cathedral spire ascends into the paleblue sky of the evening. Between the glowing columns of the cloisteris the cool darkness that only churches have, and I stand there andwonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced thebewildering emotions of love.
The image is alarmingly near; it touches me before it dissolves inthe light of the next star-shell.
I lay hold of my rifle to see that it is in trim. The barrel is wet,I take it in my hand and rub off the moisture with my fingers.
Between the meadows behind our town there stands a line of oldpoplars by a stream. They were visible from a great distance, andalthough they grew on one bank only, we called them the poplaravenue. Even as children we had a great love for them, they drew usvaguely thither, we played truant the whole day by them and listenedto their rustling. We sat beneath them on the bank of the stream andlet our feet hang over in the bright, swift waters. The purefragrance of the water and the melody of the wind in the poplars heldour fancies. We loved them dearly, and the image of those days stillmakes my heart pause in its beating.
It is strange that all the memories that come have these twoqualities. They are always completely calm, that is predominant inthem; and even if they are not really calm, they become so. They aresoundless apparitions that speak to me, with looks and gestures,silently, without any word--and it is the alarm of their silence thatforces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandonmyself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilateand gently pass away into the still forces that lie behind thesethings.
They are quiet in this way, because quietness is so unattainable forus now. At the front there is no quietness and the curse of thefront reaches so far that we never pass beyond it. Even in theremote depots and rest-areas the droning and the muffled noise ofshelling is always in our ears. We are never so far off that it isno more to be heard. But these last few days it has been unbearable.
Their stillness is the reason why these memories of former times donot awaken desire so much as sorrow--a strange, inapprehensiblemelancholy. Once we had such desires--but they return not. They arepast, they belong to another world that is gone from us. In thebarracks they called forth a rebellious, wild craving for theirreturn; for then they were still bound to us, we belonged to them andthey to us, even though we were already absent from them. Theyappeared in the soldiers' songs which we sang as we marched betweenthe glow of the dawn and the black silhouettes of the forests todrill on the moor, they were a powerful remembrance that was in usand came from us.
But here in the trenches they are completely lost to us. They ariseno more; we are dead and they stand remote on the horizon, they arean apparition, a mysterious reflection drawing us home, that we fearand love without hope. They are strong and our desire is strong--butthey are unattainable, and we know it.
And even if these scenes of our youth were given back to us we wouldhardly know what to do. The tender, secret influence that passedfrom them into us could not arise again. We long to be in them andto move in them; we long to remember and to love them and to bestirred by the sight of them. But it would be like gazing at thephotograph of a dead comrade; those are his features, it is his face,and the days we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory;but the man himself it is not.
We could never again, as the same beings, take part in those scenes.It was not any recognition of their beauty and their significancethat attracted us, but the communion, the feeling of a comradeshipwith the things and events of our existence, which cut us off andmade the world of our parents a thing incomprehensible to us--forthen we surrendered ourselves to events and were lost in them, andthe least little thing was enough to carry us down the stream ofeternity. Perhaps it was only the privilege of our youth, but as yetwe recognized no limits and saw nowhere an end. We had that thrillof expectation in the blood which united us with the course of ourdays.
To-day we would pass through the scenes of our youth like travellers.We are burnt up by hard facts; like tradesmen we understanddistinctions, and like butchers, necessities. We are no longeruntroubled--we are indifferent. We long to be there; but could welive there?
We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we arecrude and sorrowful and superficial--I believe we are lost.
My hands grow cold and my flesh creeps; and yet the night is warm.Only the mist is cold, this mysterious mist that trails the deadbefore us and sucks from them their last, creeping life. By morningthey will be pale and green and their blood congealed and black.
Still the parachute-rockets shoot up and cast their pitiless lightover the stony landscape, which is full of craters and frozen lightslike a moon. The blood beneath my skin brings fear and restlessnessinto my thoughts. They become feeble and tremble, they desire warmthand life. They cannot endure without sympathy and communion, theyare disordered before the naked picture of despair.
I hear the rattle of the mess-tins and immediately feel a strongdesire for warm food; it would do me good and comfort me. PainfullyI force myself to wait until I am relieved.
Then I go into the dug-out and find a mug of barley. It is cooked infat and tastes good, I eat it slowly. I remain quiet, though theothers are in a better mood, for the shelling has died down.
The days go by and the incredible hours follow one another as amatter of course. Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowlythe dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. Weare able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off.But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying.
For one of them we search two days in vain. He must be lying on hisbelly and unable to turn over. Otherwise it is hard to understandwhy we cannot find him; for it is only when a man has his mouth closeto the ground that it is impossible to gauge the direction of his cry.
He must have been badly hit--one of those nasty wounds, neither sosevere that they exhaust the body at once and a man dreams on in ahalf-swoon, nor so light that a man endures the pain in the hope ofbecoming well again. Kat thinks he has either a broken pelvis or ashot through the spine. His chest cannot have been injured otherwisehe would not have such strength to cry out. And if it were any otherkind of wound it would be possible to see him moving.
He grows gradually hoarser. The voice sounds so desperate that itprevails everywhere. The first night some of our fellows go outthree times to look for him. But when they think they have locatedhim and crawl across, next time they hear the voice it seems to comefrom somewhere else altogether.
We search in vain until dawn. We scrutinize the field all day withglasses, but discover nothing. On the second day the calls arefainter; that will be because his lips and mouth have become dry.
Our company commander has promised special leave with three daysextra to anyone who finds him. That is a powerful inducement, but wewould do all that is possible without that; for his cry is terrible.Kat and Kropp even go out in the afternoon, and Albert gets the lobeof his ear shot off in consequence. It is to no purpose, they comeback without him.
It is easy to understand what he cries. At first he called only forhelp--the second night he must have some delirium, he talks with hiswife and his children, we often detect the name Elise. To-day hemerely weeps. By evening the voice dwindles to a croaking. But itpersists still through the whole night. We hear it so distinctlybecause the wind blows toward our line. In the morning when wesuppose he must already have long gone to his rest, there comesacross to us one last gurgling rattle.
The days are hot and the dead lie unburied. We cannot fetch them allin, if we did we should not know what to do with them. The shellswill bury them. Many have their bellies swollen up like balloons.They hiss, belch, and make movements. The gases in them make noises.
The sky is blue and without clouds. In the evening it grows sultryand the heat rises from the earth. When the wind blows toward us itbrings the smell of blood, which is heavy and sweet. This deathlyexhalation from the shell holes seems to be a mixture of chloroformand putrefaction, and fills us with nausea and retching.
The nights become quiet and the hunt for copper driving-bands and thesilken parachutes of the French star-shells begins. Why thedriving-bands are so desirable no one knows exactly. The collectorsmerely assert that they are valuable. Some have collected so manythat they will stoop under the weight of them when we go back.
But Haie at least gives a reason. He intends to give them to hisgirl to supplement her garters. At this the Friesians explode withmirth. They slap their knees: "By Jove though, he's a wit, Haie is,he's got brains." Tjaden especially can hardly contain himself; hetakes the largest of the rings in his hand and every now and thenputs his leg through it to show how much slack there is.
"Haie, man, she must have legs like, legs----" his thoughts mountsomewhat higher, "and a behind too she must have, like a--like anelephant!"
He cannot get over it. "I wish I could play hot-hand with her once,my hat----"
Haie beams, proud that his girl should receive so much appreciation.
"She's a nice bit," he says with self-satisfaction.
The parachutes are turned to more practical uses. According to thesize of the bust three or perhaps four will make a blouse. Kropp andI use them as handkerchiefs. The others send them home. If thewomen could see at what risk these bits of rag are often obtained,they would be horrified.
Kat surprises Tjaden endeavouring with perfect equanimity to knockthe driving-band off a dud. If anyone else had tried it the thingwould have exploded, but Tjaden always has his luck with him.
One morning two butterflies play in front of our trench. They arebrimstone-butterflies, with red spots on their yellow wings. Whatcan they be looking for here? There is not a plant nor a flower formiles. They settle on the teeth of a skull. The birds too are justas carefree, they have long since accustomed themselves to the war.Every morning larks ascend from No Man's Land. A year ago we watchedthem nesting; the young ones grew up too.
We have a spell from the rats in the trench. They are in No Man'sLand--we know what for. They grow fat; when we see one we have acrack at it. At night we hear again the rolling behind the enemylines. All day we have only the normal shelling, so that we are ableto repair the trenches. There is always plenty of amusement, theairmen see to that. There are countless fights for us to watch everyday.
Battle planes don't trouble us, but the observation planes we hatelike the plague; they put the artillery on to us. A couple ofminutes after they appear, shrapnel and high-explosives begin to dropon us. We lose eleven men in one day that way, and five of themstretcher-bearers. Two are so smashed that Tjaden remarks you couldscrape them off the wall of the trench with a spoon and bury them ina mess-tin. Another has the lower part of his body and his legs tornoff. Dead, his chest leans against the side of the trench, his faceis lemon-yellow, in his beard stills burns a cigarette. It glowsuntil it dies out on his lips.
We put the dead in a large shell-hole. So far there are threelayers, one on top of the other.
Suddenly the shelling begins to pound again. Soon we are sitting uponce more with the rigid tenseness of blank anticipation.
Attack, counter-attack, charge, repulse--these are words, but whatthings they signify! We have lost a good many men, mostly recruits.Reinforcements have again been sent up to our sector. It is one ofthe new regiments, composed of young fellows called up during lastyear. They have had hardly any training, and are sent into the fieldwith only a theoretical knowledge. They do know what a hand-grenadeis, it is true, but they have very little idea of cover, and what ismost important of all, have no eye for it. A fold in the ground hasto be quite eighteen inches high before they can see it.
Although we need reinforcement, the recruits give us almost moretrouble than they are worth. They are helpless in this grim fightingarea, they fall like flies. The present method of fighting fromposts demands knowledge and experience; a man must have a feeling forthe contours of the ground, an ear for the sound and character of theshells, must be able to decide beforehand where they will drop, howthey will burst, and how to shelter from them.
The young recruits of course know none of these things. They getkilled simply because they can hardly tell shrapnel fromhigh-explosive, they are mown down because they are listeninganxiously to the roar of the big coal-boxes falling far in the rear,and miss the light, piping whistle of the low spreading littledaisy-cutters. They flock together like sheep instead of scattering,and even the wounded are shot down like hares by the airmen.
Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the miserablecourage of these poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks madeby these poor brave devils, who are so terrified that they dare notcry out loudly, but with battered chests and torn bellies and armsand legs only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon asone looks at them.
Their sharp, downy, dead faces have the awful expressionlessness ofdead children.
It brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run andfall. A man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and totake them by the arm and lead them away from here where they have nobusiness to be. They wear grey coats and trousers and boots, but formost of them the uniform is far too big, it hangs on their limbs,their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too slight; no uniformwas ever made to these childish measurements.
Between five and ten recruits fall to every old hand.
A surprise gas-attack carries off a lot of them. They have not yetlearned what to do. We found one dug-out full of them, with blueheads and black lips. Some of them in a shell hole took their masksoff too soon; they did not know that the gas lies longest in thehollows; when they saw others on top without masks they pulled theirsoff too and swallowed enough to scorch their lungs. Their conditionis hopeless, they choke to death with hæmorrhages and suffocation.
In one part of the trench I suddenly run into Himmelstoss. We diveinto the same dug-out. Breathless we are all lying one beside theother waiting for the charge.
When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think:"Where's Himmelstoss?" Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and findhim with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.His face looks sullen. He is in a panic; he is new to it too. Butit makes me mad that the young recruits should be out there and hehere.
"Get out!" I spit.
He does not stir, his lips quiver, his moustache twitches.
"Out!" I repeat.
He draws up his legs, crouches back against the wall, and shows histeeth like a cur.
I seize him by the arm and try to pull him up. He barks.
That is too much for me. I grab him by the neck and shake him like asack, his head jerks from side to side.
"You lump, will you get out--you hound, you skunk, sneak out of it,would you?" His eye becomes glassy, I knock his head against thewall--"You cow"--I kick him in the ribs--"You swine"--I push himtoward the door and shove him out head first.
Another wave of our attack has just come up. A lieutenant is withthem. He sees us and yells; "Forward, forward, join in, follow."And the word of command does what all my banging could not.Himmelstoss hears the order, looks round him as if awakened, andfollows on.
I come after and watch him go over. Once more he is the smartHimmelstoss of the parade-ground, he has even outstripped thelieutenant and is far ahead.
Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns,hand-grenades--words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.
Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary todeath; when the attack comes we shall have to strike many of the menwith our fists to waken them and make them come with us--our eyes areburnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed, our elbows are raw.
How long has it been? Weeks--months--years? Only days. We see timepass in the colourless faces of the dying, we cram food into us, werun, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble andspent, and nothing supports us but the knowledge that there are stillfeebler, still more spent, still more helpless ones there who, withstaring eyes, look upon us as gods that escape death many times.
In the few hours of rest we teach them. "There, see that waggle-top?That's a mortar coming. Keep down, it will go clean over. But if itcomes this way, then run for it. You can run from a mortar."
We sharpen their ears to the malicious, hardly audible buzz of thesmaller shells that are not so easily distinguished. They must pickthem out from the general din by their insect-like hum--we explain tothem that these are far more dangerous than the big ones that can beheard long beforehand.
We show them how to take cover from aircraft, how to simulate a deadman when one is overrun in an attack, how to time hand-grenades sothat they explode half a second before hitting the ground; we teachthem to fling themselves into holes as quick as lightning before theshells with instantaneous fuses; we show them how to clean up atrench with a handful of bombs; we explain the difference between thefuse-length of the enemy bombs and our own; we put them wise to thesound of gas shells;--show them all the tricks that can save themfrom death.
They listen, they are docile--but when it begins again, in theirexcitement they do everything wrong.
Haie Westhus drags off with a great wound in his back through whichthe lung pulses at every breath. I can only press his hand; "It'sall up, Paul," he groans and bites his arm because of the pain.
We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers runwith their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumpsinto the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a halfon his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to thedressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; wesee men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one manwho has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours inorder not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, theshells whine, life is at an end.
Still the little piece of convulsed earth in which we lie is held.We have yielded no more than a few hundred yards of it as a prize tothe enemy. But on every yard there lies a dead man.
- *
We have been relieved. The wheels roll beneath us, we stand dully,and when the call "Mind--wire" comes, we bend our knees. It wassummer when we came up, the trees were still green, now it is autumnand the night is grey and wet. The lorries stop, we climb out--aconfused heap, a remnant of many names. On either side stand people,dark, calling out the numbers of the regiments, the companies. Andat each call a little group separates itself off, a small handful ofdirty, pallid soldiers, a dreadfully small handful, and a dreadfullysmall remnant.
Now someone is calling the number of our company, it is, yes, theCompany-Commander, he has got one too, his arm is in a sling. We goover to him and I recognize Kat and Albert, we stand together, leanagainst each other, and look at one another.
And we hear the number of our company called again and again. Hewill call a long time, they do not hear him in the hospitals andshell-holes.
Once again: "Second Company, this way!"
And then more softly: "Nobody else Second Company?"
He is silent, and then huskily he says: "Is that all?" and gives theorder: "Number!"
The morning is grey, it was still summer when we came up, and we wereone hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze, it is autumn, theleaves rustle, the voices flutter out wearily:"One--two--three--four----" and cease at thirty-two. And there is along silence before the voice asks: "Anyone else?"--and waits andthen says softly: "In squads----" and then breaks off and is onlyable to finish: "Second Company----" with difficulty: "SecondCompany--march easy!"
A line, a short line trudges off into the morning.
Thirty-two men.
CHAPTER VII
They have taken us farther back than usual to a field depot so thatwe can be re-organized. Our company needs more than a hundredreinforcements.
In the meantime, when we are off duty, we loaf around. After acouple of days Himmelstoss comes up to us. He has had the bounceknocked out of him since he has been in the trenches and wants to geton good terms with us. I am willing enough, because I saw how hebrought Haie Westhus in when he was hit in the back. Besides he'sdecent enough to treat us at the canteen when we are out of funds.Only Tjaden is still reserved and suspicious.
But he is won over, too, when Himmelstoss tells us that he is takingthe place of the sergeant-cook who has gone on leave. As a proof heproduces on the spot two pounds of sugar for us and a half-pound ofbutter specially for Tjaden. He even sees to it that we are detailedthe next two or three days to the cook house for potato and turnippeeling. The grub he gives us there is real officers' fare.
Thus for the moment we have the two things a soldier needs forcontentment: good food and rest. That's not much when one comes tothink of it. A couple of years ago we would have despised ourselvesterribly. But now we are quite happy. It is all a matter ofhabit--even the front line.
Habit is the explanation of why we seem to forget things so quickly.Yesterday we were under fire, to-day we act the fool and go foragingthrough the countryside, to-morrow we go up to the trenches again.We forget nothing really. But so long as we have to stay here in thefield, the front-line days, when they are past, sink down in us likea stone; they are too serious for us to be able to reflect on them atonce. If we did that, we should have been destroyed long ago. Isoon found out this much:--terror can be endured so long as a mansimply ducks;--but it kills, if a man thinks about it.
Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line, because thatis the only thing which brings us through safely, so we turn intowags and loafers when we are out resting. We can do nothing else, itis a sheer necessity. We want to live at any price; so we cannotburden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamentalenough in peace time, would be out of place here. Kemmerich is dead,Haie Westhus is dying, they will have a job with Hans Kramer's bodyat the Judgment Day, piecing it together after a direct hit; Martenshas no legs any more, Meyer is dead, Max is dead, Beyer is dead,Hammerling is dead, there are a hundred and twenty wounded men lyingsomewhere or other; it is a damnable business, but what has it to dowith us now--we live. If it were possible for us to save them, thenit would be seen how much we cared--we would have a shot at it thoughwe went under ourselves; for we can be damned quixotic when we like;fear we do not know much about--terror of death, yes; but that is adifferent matter, that is physical.
But our comrades are dead, we cannot help them, they have theirrest--and who knows what is waiting for us? We will make ourselvescomfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into ourbellies, and drink and smoke so that the hours are not wasted. Lifeis short.
The terror of the front sinks deep down when we turn our backs uponit; we make grim, coarse jests about it, when a man dies, then we sayhe had nipped off his turd, and so we speak of everything; that keepsus from going mad; as long as we take it that way we maintain our ownresistance.
But we do not forget. It's all rot that they put in the war-newsabout the good humour of the troops, how they are arranging dancesalmost before they are out of the front-line. We don't act like thatbecause we are in a good humour: we are in a good humour becauseotherwise we should go to pieces. If it were not so we could nothold out much longer; our humour becomes more bitter every month.
And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in thewar, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again,and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death.
The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, andour dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, ourheads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march,our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behindus:--against whom, against whom?
Some time ago there was an army theatre in these parts. Colouredposters of the performances are still sticking on a hoarding. Withwide eyes Kropp and I stand in front of it. We can hardly creditthat such things still exist. A girl in a light summer dress, with ared patent-leather belt about her hips! She is standing with onehand on a railing and with the other she holds a straw hat. Shewears white stockings and white shoes, fine buckle shoes with highheels. Behind her smiles a blue lake with white-horses, at the sideis a bright bay. She is a lovely girl with a delicate nose, redlips, and slender legs, wonderfully clean and well cared for, shecertainly bathes twice a day and never has any dirt under her nails.At most perhaps a bit of sand from the beach.
Beside her stands a man in white trousers, a bluejacket, and sailor'scap; but he interests us much less.
The girl on the poster is a wonder to us. We have quite forgottenthat there are such things, and even now we hardly believe our eyes.We have seen nothing like it for years, nothing like it forhappiness, beauty, and joy. That is peace time, that is as it shouldbe; we feel excited.
"Just look at those thin shoes though, she couldn't march many milesin those," I say, and then begin to feel silly, for it is absurd tostand in front of a picture like this and think of nothing butmarching.
"How old would she be?" Kropp asks.
"About twenty-two at the most," I hazard.
"Then she would be older than us! She is not more than seventeen,let me tell you!"
It gives us goose-flesh.
"That would be good, Albert, what do you think?"
He nods. "I have some white trousers at home too."
"White trousers," say I, "but a girl like that----"
We look askance at one another. There's not much to boast ofhere--two ragged, stained, and dirty uniforms. It is hopeless tocompete.
So we proceed to tear the young man with the white trousers off thehoarding, taking care not to damage the girl. That is somethingtowards it.
"We could go and get deloused, anyway," Kropp then suggests.
I am not very enthusiastic because it doesn't do one's clothes anygood and a man is lousy again inside two hours. But when we haveconsidered the picture once more, I declare myself willing. I evengo farther.
"We might see if we could get a clean shirt as well----"
"Socks might be better," says Albert, not without reason.
"Yes, socks too perhaps. Let's go and explore a bit."
Then Leer and Tjaden stroll up; they look at the poster andimmediately the conversation becomes smutty. Leer was the first ofour class to have intercourse, and he gave stirring details of it.After his fashion he enjoys himself over the picture, and Tjadensupports him nobly.
It does not distress us exactly. Who isn't smutty is no soldier; itmerely does not suit us at the moment, so we edge away and march offto the delousing station with the same feeling as if it were a swellgentlemen's outfitters.
The houses in which we are billeted lie near the canal. On the otherside of the canal there are ponds flanked with poplars;--on the otherside of the canal there are women too.
The houses on our side have been abandoned. On the other side thoughone occasionally sees inhabitants.
In the evening we go swimming. Three women come strolling along thebank. They walk slowly and don't look away, although we have nobathing suits.
Leer calls out to them. They laugh and stop to watch us. We flingremarks at them in broken French, anything that comes into our heads,hastily and all jumbled together, anything to detain them. They arenot specially wonderful pieces, but then where are such to be hadabout here?
There is one slim little brunette. Her teeth gleam when she laughs.She has quick movements, her dress swings loosely about her legs.Although the water is cold we are very jovial and do our best tointerest them so that they will stay. We try to make jokes and theyanswer with things we cannot understand; we laugh and beckon. Tjadenis more crafty. He runs into the house, gets a loaf of army breadand holds it up.
That produces a great effect. They nod and beckon us to come over.But we don't dare to do that. It is forbidden to cross to theopposite bank. There are sentries on all the bridges. It'simpossible without a pass. So we indicate that they should come overto us; but they shake their heads and point to the bridge. They arenot allowed to pass either. They turn away and walk slowly down thecanal, keeping along the tow-path all the way. We accompany themswimming. After a few hundred yards they turn off and point to ahouse that stands a little distance away among the trees andshrubbery.
Leer asks if they live there.
They laugh--sure, that's their house.
We call out to them that we would like to come, sometime when theguards cannot see us. At night. To-night.
They raise their hands, put them together, rest their faces on themand shut their eyes. They understand. The slim brunette does atwo-step. The blonde girl twitters: "Bread--good----"
Eagerly we assure them that we will bring some with us. And othertasty bits too, we roll our eyes and try to explain with our hands.Leer nearly drowns trying to demonstrate a sausage. If it werenecessary we would promise them a whole quartermaster's store. Theygo off and frequently turn and look back. We climb out on the bankon our side of the canal and watch to see whether they go into thehouse for they might easily have been lying. Then we swim back.
No one can cross the bridge without leave, so we will simply have toswim over at night. We are full of excitement. We cannot last outwithout a drink, so we go to the canteen where there is beer and akind of punch.
We drink punch and tell one another lying tales of our experiences.Each man gladly believes the other man's story, only waitingimpatiently till he can cap it with a taller one. Our hands arefidgety, we smoke countless cigarettes, until Kropp says: "We mightas well take them a couple of cigarettes too." So we put some insideour caps to keep them.
The sky turns apple-green. There are four of us, but only three cango; we must shake off Tjaden, so ply him with rum and punch until herocks. As it turns dark we go to our billets, Tjaden in the centre.We are all glowing and full of a lust for adventure.
The little brunette is mine, we settled that by cutting for her.
Tjaden drops on his sack of straw and snores. Once he wakes up andgrins so craftily that we are alarmed and begin to think he ischeating, and that we have given him the punch to no purpose. Thenhe drops back again and sleeps on.
We each get hold of a whole army loaf and wrap it up in newspaper.The cigarettes we put in too, as well as three good rations ofliver-sausage that were issued to us this evening. That makes adecent present.
We stow the things carefully in our boots; we have to take them toprotect our feet against treading on wire and broken glass on theother bank. As we must swim for it we can take no other clothes.But it is not far and quite dark.
We make off with our boots in our hands. Swiftly we slip into thewater, lie on our backs and swim, holding the boots with theircontents up over our heads.
We climb out carefully on the opposite bank, take out the packagesand put on our boots. We put the things under our arms. And so, allwet and naked, clothed only in our boots, we break into a trot. Wefind the house at once. It lies among the trees. Leer trips over aroot and skins his elbows.
"No matter," he says gaily.
The windows are shuttered. We slip round the house and try to peerthrough the cracks. Then we grow impatient. Suddenly Kropphesitates:
"What if there's a Major in with them?"
"Then we just clear off," grins Leer, "he can try to read ourregimental numbers here," and smacks his behind.
The door of the court-yard stands open. Our boots make a greatclatter. The house door opens, a chink of light shines through and awoman cries out in a scared voice.
"Ssh, ssh! camerade--bon ami--" we say, and show our packagesprotestingly.
The other two are now on the scene, the door opens wide and the lightfloods over us. They recognize us and all three burst into laughterat our appearance. They rock and sway in the doorway, they laugh somuch. How supple their movements are!
"Un moment--" They disappear and throw us bits of clothing which wegladly wrap round ourselves. Then we venture in. A small lamp burnsin the room, which is warm and smells a little of perfume. We unwrapour parcels and hand them over to the women. Their eyes shine, it isobvious that they are hungry.
Then we all become rather embarrassed. Leer makes the gestures ofeating, and then they come to life again and bring out plates andknives and fall to on the food, and they hold up every slice ofliver-sausage and admire it before they eat it, and we sit proudly by.
They overwhelm us with their chatter;--we understand very little ofit, but we listen and the words sound friendly. No doubt we all lookvery young. The little brunette strokes my hair and says what allthe French women say: "La guerre--grand malheur--pauvres garçons----"
I hold her arm tightly and press my lips into the palm of her hand.Her fingers close round my face. Close above me are her bewilderingeyes, the soft brown of her skin and her red lips. Her mouth speakswords I do not understand. Nor do I fully understand her eyes; theyseem to say more than we anticipated when we came here.
There are other rooms adjoining. In passing I see Leer, he has madea great hit with the blonde. And he knows it, too. But I--I am lostin remoteness, in weakness, and in a passion to which I yield myselftrustingly. My desires are strangely compounded of yearning andmisery. I feel giddy, there is nothing here that a man can hold onto. We have left our boots at the door, they have given us slippersinstead, and now nothing remains to recall for me the assurance andself-confidence of the soldier: no rifle, no belt, no tunic, no cap.I let myself drop into the unknown, come what may--yet, in spite ofall, I feel somewhat afraid.
The little brunette contracts her brows when she is thinking; butwhen she talks they are still. And often the sound does not quitebecome a word but suffocates or floats away over me half-finished; anarch, a pathway, a comet. What have I known of it--what do I know ofit?--The words of this foreign tongue, that I hardly understand, theycaress me to a quietness, in which the room grows dim, and dissolvesin the half light, and only the face above me lives and is clear.
How various is a face; but an hour ago it was strange and now it istouched with a tenderness that comes, not from it, but out of thenight, the world and the blood, all these things seem to shine in ittogether. The objects in the room are touched by it and transformed,they become isolated, and I feel almost awed at the sight of my clearskin when the light of the lamp falls upon it and the cool, brownhand passes over it.
How different all this is from the conditions in the soldier'sbrothels, to which we are allowed to go, and where we have to wait inlong queues. I wish I never thought of them; but desire turns mymind to them involuntarily and I am afraid, for it might beimpossible ever to be free of them again.
But then I feel the lips of the little brunette and press myselfagainst them, my eyes close and I let it all fall from me, war andterror and grossness, in order to awaken young and happy; I think ofthe picture of the girl on the poster and, for a moment, believe thatmy life depends on winning her. And if I press ever deeper into thearms that embrace me, perhaps a miracle may happen....
. . . . . . . .
So, after a time we find ourselves reassembled again. Leer is inhigh spirits. We pull on our boots and take our leave warmly. Thenight air cools our hot bodies. The rustling poplars loom large inthe darkness. The moon floats in the heavens and in the waters ofthe canal. We do not run, we walk beside one another with longstrides.
"That was worth a ration-loaf," says Leer.
I cannot trust myself to speak, I am not in the least happy.
Then we hear footsteps and dodge behind a shrub.
The steps come nearer, close by us. We see a naked soldier, inboots, just like ourselves; he has a package under his arm, andgallops onward. It is Tjaden in full course. He has disappearedalready.
We laugh. In the morning he will curse us.
Unobserved, we arrive again at our sacks of straw.
I am called to the Orderly Room. The Company Commander gives me aleave-pass and a travel-pass and wishes me a good journey. I look tosee how much leave I have got. Seventeen days--fourteen days leaveand three days for travelling. It is not enough and I ask whether Icannot have five days for travelling. Bertinck points to my pass.There I see that I am not to return to the front immediately. Aftermy leave I have to report for a course of training to a camp on themoors.
The others congratulate me. Kat gives me good advice, and tells me Iought to try to get a base-job. "If you are smart, you'll hang on toit."
I would rather not have gone for another eight days; we are to stayhere that much longer and it is good here.
Naturally I have to stand the others drinks at the canteen. We areall a little bit drunk. I become gloomy: I will be away for sixweeks-- That is lucky of course, but what may happen before I getback? Shall I meet all these fellows again? Already Haie hasgone--who will the next be?
As we drink, I look at each of them in turn. Albert sits beside meand smokes, he is silent, we have always been together;--oppositesquats Kat, with his drooping shoulders, his broad thumb, and calmvoice--Müller with the protruding teeth and the booming laugh; Tjadenwith his mousey eyes;--Leer who has grown a full beard and looks atleast forty.
Over us hangs a dense cloud of smoke. Where would a soldier bewithout tobacco. The canteen is his refuge, and beer is far morethan a drink, it is a token that a man can move his limbs and stretchin safety. We do it ceremonially, we stretch our legs out in frontof us and spit deliberately, that is the only way. How it all risesup before a man when he is going away the next morning!
At night we go again to the other side of the canal. I am almostafraid to tell the little brunette that I am going away, and when Ireturn we will certainly be far away from here; we will never see oneanother again. But she merely nods and takes no special notice. Atfirst I am at a loss to understand, then it suddenly dawns on me.Yes, Leer is right: if I were going up to the front, then she wouldhave again called me "pauvre garçon"; but merely going on leave--shedoes not want to hear about that, that is not nearly so interesting.May she go to the devil with her chattering talk. A man dreams of amiracle and wakes up to loaves of bread.
Next morning, after I have been de-loused, I go to the rail head.Albert and Kat come with me. At the halt we learn that it will be acouple of hours yet before the train leaves. The other two have togo back to duty. We take leave of one another.
"Good luck, Kat; good luck, Albert."
They go off and wave once or twice. Their figures dwindle. I knowtheir every step and movement; I would recognize them at anydistance. Then they disappear. I sit down on my pack and wait.
Suddenly I become filled with a consuming impatience to be gone.
I lie down on many a station platform; I stand before many asoup-kitchen; I squat on many a bench;--then at last the landscapebecomes gloomy, mysterious, and familiar. It glides past the westernwindows with its villages, their thatched roofs like caps, pulledover the white-washed, half-timbered houses, its corn-fields,gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the slanting light, its orchards,its barns and old lime trees.
The names of the stations begin to take on meaning and my hearttrembles. The train stamps and stamps onward, I stand at the windowand hold on to the frame. These names mark the boundaries of myyouth.
Smooth meadows, fields, farm-yards; a solitary team moves against thesky-line along the road that runs parallel to the horizon--a barrier,before which peasants stand waiting, girls waving, children playingon the embankment, roads, leading into the country, smooth roadswithout artillery.
It is evening, and if the train did not rattle I should cry out. Theplain unfolds itself.
In the distance, the soft, blue silhouette of the mountain rangesbegins to appear. I recognize the characteristic outline of theDolbenberg, a jagged comb, springing up precipitously from the limitof the forests. Behind it should lie the town.
But now the sun streams through the world, dissolving everything inits golden-red light, the train swings round one curve and thenanother;--far away, in a long line one behind the other, stand thepoplars, unsubstantial, swaying and dark, fashioned out of shadow,light, and desire.
The field swings round as the train encircles it, and the intervalsbetween the trees diminish; the trees become a block and for a momentI see one only--then they reappear from behind the foremost tree andstand out a long line against the sky until they are hidden by thefirst houses.
A street-crossing. I stand at the window, I cannot drag myself away.The others put their baggage ready for getting out. I repeat tomyself the name of the Street that we crossever--Bremerstrasse--Bremerstrasse--
Below there are cyclists, lorries, men; it is a grey street and agrey subway;--it embraces me as though it were my mother.
Then the train stops, and there is the station with noise and criesand sentries. I pick up my pack and fasten the straps, I take myrifle in my hand and stumble down the steps.
On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the peoplehurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something todrink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed withher own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"--Shecalls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.
Outside in front of the station the stream roars alongside thestreet, it rushes foaming from the sluices of the mill bridge. Therestands the old, square watch-tower, in front of it the great mottledlime tree and behind it the evening.
Here we have often sat--how long ago it is--; we have passed overthis bridge and breathed the cool, acid smell of the stagnant water;we have leaned over the still water on this side of the lock, wherethe green creepers and weeds hang from the piles of the bridge;--andon hot days we rejoiced in the spouting foam on the other side of thelock and told tales about our school-teachers.
I pass over the bridge, I look right and left; the water is as fullof weeds as ever, and it still shoots over in gleaming arches; in thetower-building laundresses still stand with bare arms as they used toover the clean linen, and the heat from the ironing pours out throughthe open windows. Dogs trot along the narrow street, before thedoors of the houses people stand and follow me with their gaze as Ipass by, dirty and heavy laden.
In this confectioner's we used to eat ices, and there we learned tosmoke cigarettes. Walking down the street I know every shop, thecolonial warehouse, the chemist's, the tobacconist's. Then at last Istand before the brown door with its worn latch and my hand growsheavy. I open the door and a wonderful freshness comes out to meetme, my eyes are dim.
The stairs creak under my boots. Upstairs a door rattles, someone islooking over the railing. It is the kitchen door that was opened,they are cooking potato-cakes, the house reeks of it, and to-day ofcourse is Saturday; that will be my sister leaning over. For amoment I am shy and lower my head, then I take off my helmet and lookup. Yes, it is my eldest sister.
"Paul," she cries, "Paul----"
I nod, my pack bumps against the banisters; my rifle is so heavy.
She pulls a door open and calls: "Mother, mother, Paul is here."
I can go no further--mother, mother, Paul is here.
I lean against the wall and grip my helmet and rifle. I hold them astight as I can, but I cannot take another step, the staircase fadesbefore my eyes, I support myself with the butt of my rifle against myfeet and clench my teeth fiercely, but I cannot speak a word, mysister's call has made me powerless, I can do nothing, I struggle tomake myself laugh, to speak, but no word comes, and so I stand on thesteps, miserable, helpless, paralysed, and against my will the tearsrun down my cheeks.
My sister comes back and says: "Why, what is the matter?"
Then I pull myself together and stagger on to the landing. I lean myrifle in a corner, I set my pack against the wall, place my helmet onit, and fling down my equipment and baggage. Then I say fiercely:"Bring me a handkerchief."
She gives me one from the cupboard and I dry my face. Above me onthe wall hangs the glass case with the coloured butterflies that onceI collected.
Now I hear my mother's voice. It comes from the bedroom.
"Is she in bed?" I ask my sister.
"She is ill--" she replies.
I go in to her, give her my hand and say as calmly as I can: "Here Iam, mother."
She lies still in the dim light. Then she asks anxiously:
"Are you wounded?" and I feel her searching glance.
"No, I have got leave."
My mother is very pale. I am afraid to make a light.
"Here I lie now," says she, "and cry instead of being glad."
"Are you sick, mother?" I ask.
"I am going to get up a little to-day," she says and turns to mysister, who is continually running to the kitchen to watch that thefood does not burn: "And put out the jar of preservedwhortleberries--you like that, don't you?" she asks me.
"Yes, mother, I haven't had any for a long time."
"We might almost have known you were coming," laughs my sister,"there is just your favourite dish, potato-cakes, and evenwhortle-berries to go with them too."
"And it is Saturday," I add.
"Sit here beside me," says my mother.
She looks at me. Her hands are white and sickly and frail comparedwith mine. We say very little, and I am thankful that she asksnothing. What ought I to say? Everything I could have wished forhas happened. I have come out of it safely and sit here beside her.And in the kitchen stands my sister making the evening bread andsinging.
"Dear boy," says my mother softly.
We were never very demonstrative in our family; poor folk who toiland are full of cares are not so. It is not their way to protestwhat they already know. When my mother says to me "dear boy," itmeans much more than when another uses it. I know well enough thatthe jar of whortleberries is the only one they have had for months,and that she has kept it for me; and the somewhat stale cakes thatshe gives me too. She has taken a favourable opportunity of gettinga few and has put them all by for me.
I sit by her bed, and through the window the chestnut trees in thebeer garden opposite glow in brown and gold. I breathe deeply andsay over to myself:--"You are at home, you are at home." But a senseof strangeness will not leave me, I can find nothing of myself in allthese things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my caseof butterflies, and there the mahogany piano--but I am not myselfthere. There is a distance, a veil between us.
I go and fetch my pack to the bedside and turn out the things I havebrought--a whole Edamer cheese, that Kat provided me with, two loavesof army bread, three-quarters of a pound of butter, two tins ofliver-sausage, a pound of dripping and a little bag of rice.
"I suppose you can make some use of that----"
They nod.
"Is it pretty bad for food here?" I enquire.
"Yes, there's not much. Do you get enough out there?"
I smile and point to the things I have brought. "Not always quite somuch as that, of course, but we fare reasonably well."
Erna goes out to bring in the food. Suddenly my mother seizes holdof my hand and asks falteringly: "Was it very bad out there, Paul?"
Mother, what should I answer to that! You would not understand, andnever realize it. And you never should realize it. Was it bad, youask.--You, Mother,--I shake my head and say: "No, mother, not sovery. There are always a lot of us together so it isn't so bad."
"Yes, but Heinrich Bredemeyer was here just lately and he said it wasterrible out there now, with the gas and all the rest of it."
It is my mother who says that. She says: "With the gas and all therest of it." She does not know what she is saying, she is merelyanxious for me. Should I tell her how we once found three enemytrenches with their garrison all stiff as though stricken withapoplexy? Against the parapet, in the dugouts, just where they were,the men stood and lay about, with blue faces, dead.
"No, mother, that's only talk," I answer, "there's not very much inwhat Bredemeyer says. You see for instance, I'm well and fit----"
Before my mother's tremulous anxiety I recover my composure. Now Ican walk about and talk and answer questions without fear of havingsuddenly to lean against the wall because the world turns soft asrubber and my veins become brimstone.
My mother wants to get up. So I go for a while to my sister in thekitchen. "What is the matter with her?" I ask.
She shrugs her shoulders: "She has been in bed two months now, but wedid not want to write and tell you. Several doctors have been to seeher. One of them said it is probably cancer again."
I go to the district commandant to report myself. Slowly I wanderthrough the streets. Occasionally someone speaks to me. I do notdelay long for I have little inclination to talk.
On my way back from the barracks a loud voice calls out to me. Stilllost in thought I turn round and find myself confronted by a Major."Can't you salute?" he blusters.
"Sorry, Major," I say in embarrassment, "I didn't notice you."
"Don't you know how to speak properly?" he roars.
I would like to hit him in the face, but control myself, for my leavedepends on it. I click my heels and say: "I did not see you, HerrMajor."
"Then keep your eyes open," he snorts.
"What is your name?" I give it.
His fat red face is furious. "What regiment?"
I give him full particulars. Even yet he has not had enough. "Whereare they?"
But I have had more than enough and say: "Between Langemark andBixschoote."
"Eh?" he asks, a bit stupefied.
I explain to him that I arrived on leave only an hour or two since,thinking that he would then trot along. But not at all. He getseven more furious: "You think you can bring your front-line mannershere, what? Well, we don't stand that sort of thing. Thank God, wehave discipline here!"
"Twenty paces backwards, double march!" he commands.
I am mad with rage. But I cannot say anything to him; he could putme under arrest if he liked. So I double back, and then march up tohim. Six paces from him I spring to a stiff salute and maintain ituntil I am six paces beyond him.
He calls me back again and affably gives me to understand that foronce he is pleased to put mercy before justice. I pretend to be dulygrateful. "Now, dismiss!" he says. I turn about smartly and marchoff.
That ruins the evening for me. I go back home and throw my uniforminto a corner; I ought to have done that before. Then I take out mycivilian clothes from the wardrobe and put them on.
I feel awkward. The suit is rather tight and short, I have grown inthe army. Collar and tie give me some trouble. In the end my sisterties the bow for me. But how light the suit is, it feels as though Ihad nothing on but a shirt and underpants.
I look at myself in the glass. It is a strange sight. A sunburnt,overgrown candidate for confirmation gazes at me in astonishment.
My mother is pleased to see me wearing civilian clothes; it makes meless strange to her. But my father would rather I kept my uniform onso that he could take me to visit his acquaintances.
But I refuse.
It is pleasant to sit quietly somewhere, in the beer-garden forexample, under the chestnuts by the skittle-alley. The leaves falldown on the table and on the ground, only a few, the first. A glassof beer stands in front of me, I've learned to drink in the army.The glass is half empty, but there are still a few good swigs aheadof me, and besides I can always order a second and a third if I wishto. There are no bugles and no bombardments, the children of thehouse play in the skittle-alley, and the dog rests his head againstmy knee. The sky is blue, between the leaves of the chestnuts risesthe green spire of St. Margaret's Church.
This is good, I like it. But I cannot get on with the people. Mymother is the only one who asks no questions. Not so my father. Hewants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that Ifind stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact withhim. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. Irealize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; Iwould do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put thesethings into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and Ibe no longer able to master them. What would become of us ifeverything that happens out there were quite clear to us?
So I confine myself to telling him a few amusing things. But hewants to know whether I have ever had a hand-to-hand fight. I say"No," and get up and go out.
But that does not mend matters. After I have been startled a coupleof times in the street by the screaming of the tramcars, whichresembles the shriek of a shell coming straight for one, somebodytaps me on the shoulder. It is my German-master, and he fastens onme with the usual question: "Well, how are things out there?Terrible, terrible, eh? Yes, it is dreadful, but we must carry on.And after all, you do at least get decent food out there, so I hear.You look well, Paul, and fit. Naturally it's worse here. Naturally.The best for our soldiers every time, that goes without saying."
He drags me along to a table with a lot of others. They welcome me,a head-master shakes hands with me and says: "So you come from thefront? What is the spirit like out there? Excellent, eh? excellent?"
I explain that no one would be sorry to be back home.
He laughs uproariously. "I can well believe it! But first you haveto give the Froggies a good hiding. Do you smoke? Here, try one.Waiter, bring a beer as well for our young warrior."
Unfortunately I have accepted the cigar, so I have to remain. Andthey are all so dripping with good will that it is impossible toobject. All the same I feel annoyed and smoke like a chimney as hardas I can. In order to make at least some show of appreciation I tossoff the beer in one gulp. Immediately a second is ordered; peopleknow how much they are indebted to the soldiers. They argue aboutwhat we ought to annex. The head-master with the steel watch-chainwants to have at least the whole of Belgium, the coal-areas ofFrance, and a slice of Russia. He produces reasons why we must havethem and is quite inflexible until at last the others give in to him.Then he begins to expound just whereabouts in France thebreak-through must come, and turns to me: "Now, shove ahead a bit outthere with your everlasting trench warfare--Smash through thejohnnies and then there will be peace."
I reply that in our opinion a break-through may not be possible. Theenemy may have too many reserves. Besides, the war may be ratherdifferent from what people think.
He dismisses the idea loftily and informs me I know nothing about it."The details, yes," says he, "but this relates to the whole. And ofthat you are not able to judge. You see only your little sector andso cannot have any general survey. You do your duty, you risk yourlives, that deserves the highest honour--every man of you ought tohave the Iron Cross--but first of all the enemy line must be brokenthrough in Flanders and then rolled up from the top."
He blows his nose and wipes his beard. "Completely rolled up theymust be, from the top to the bottom. And then to Paris."
I would like to know just how he pictures it to himself, and pour thethird glass of beer into me. Immediately he orders another.
But I break away. He stuffs a few more cigars into my pocket andsends me off with a friendly slap. "All of the best! I hope we willsoon hear something worth while from you."
I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it wasdifferent a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in theinterval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. At thattime I still knew nothing about the war, we had been only in quietsectors. But now I see that I have been crushed without knowing it.I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world. Some ofthese people ask questions, some ask no questions, but one can seethat they are quite confident they know all about it; they often sayso with their air of comprehension, so there is no point indiscussing it. They make up a picture of it for themselves.
I prefer to be alone, so that no one troubles me. For they all comeback to the same thing, how badly it goes and how well it goes; onethinks it is this way, another that; and yet they are always absorbedin the things that go to make up their own existence. Formerly Ilived in just the same way myself, but now I feel no contact here anylonger.
They talk to me too much. They have worries, aims, desires, that Ican not comprehend. I often sit with one of them in the littlebeer-garden and try to explain to him that this is really the onlything: just to sit quietly, like this. They understand of course,they agree, they may even feel it so too, but only with words, onlywith words, yes, that is it--they feel it, but always with only halfof themselves, the rest of their being is taken up with other things,they are so divided in themselves that none feels it with his wholeessence; I cannot even say myself exactly what I mean.
When I see them here, in their rooms, in their offices, about theiroccupations, I feel an irresistible attraction in it, I would like tobe here too and forget the war; but also it repels me, it is sonarrow, how can that fill a man's life, he ought to smash it to bits;how can they do it, while out at the front the splinters are whiningover the shell-holes and the star-shells go up, the wounded arecarried back on water-proof sheets and comrades crouch in thetrenches.-- They are different men here, men I cannot properlyunderstand, whom I envy and despise. I must think of Kat and Albertand Müller and Tjaden, what will they be doing? No doubt they aresitting in the canteen, or perhaps swimming--soon they will have togo up to the front-line again.
In my room behind the table stands a brown leather sofa. I sit downon it.
On the walls are pasted countless pictures that I once used to cutout of the newspapers. In between are drawings and postcards thathave come my way. In the corner is a small iron stove. Against thewall opposite stand the book-shelves with my books.
I used to live in this room before I was a soldier. The books Ibought gradually with the money I earned by coaching. Many of themare second-hand, all the classics for example, one volume in bluecloth boards cost one mark twenty pfennig. I bought them completebecause I was thoroughgoing, I did not trust the editors ofselections, even though they may have chosen all the best. So Ipurchased only "collected works." I read most of them with laudablezeal, but few of them really appealed to me. I preferred the otherbooks, the moderns, which were of course much dearer. A few I cameby not quite honestly, I borrowed and did not return them because Idid not want to part with them.
One shelf is filled with school books. They are not so well caredfor, they are badly thumbed, and pages have been torn out for certainpurposes. Then below are periodicals, papers, and letters all jammedin together with drawings and rough sketches.
I want to think myself back into that time. It is still in the room,I feel it at once, the walls have preserved it. My hands rest on thearms of the sofa; now I make myself at home and draw up my legs sothat I sit comfortably in the corner, in the arms of the sofa. Thelittle window is open, through it I see the familiar picture of thestreet with the rising spire of the church at the end. There are acouple of flowers on the table. Pen-holders, a shell as apaper-weight, the ink-well--here nothing is changed.
It will be like this too, if I am lucky, when the war is over and Icome back here for good. I will sit here just like this and look atmy room and wait.
I feel excited; but I do not want to be, for that is not right. Iwant that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful,nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books. Thebreath of desire that then arose from the coloured backs of thebooks, shall fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead thatlies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future,the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back again thelost eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait.
It occurs to me that I must go and see Kemmerich's mother;--I mightvisit Mittelstaedt too, he should be at the barracks. I look out ofthe window;--beyond the sober picture of the street appears a rangeof hills, distant and light; it changes to a clear day in autumn, andI sit by the fire with Kat and Albert and eat potatoes baked in theirskins.
But I do not want to think of that, I sweep it away. The room shallspeak, it must catch me up and hold me, I want to feel that I belonghere, I want to hearken and know when I go back to the front that thewar will sink down, be drowned utterly in the great home-coming tide,know that it will then be past for ever, and not gnaw us continually,that it will have none but an outward power over us.
The backs of the books stand in rows. I know them all still, Iremember arranging them in order. I implore them with my eyes: Speakto me--take me up--take me, Life of my Youth--you who are care-free,beautiful--receive me again--
I wait, I wait.
Images float through my mind, but they do not grip me, they are mereshadows and memories.
Nothing--nothing--
My disquietude grows.
A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannotfind my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and putforth all my strength.
Nothing stirs; listless and wretched, like a condemned man, I sitthere and the past withdraws itself. And at the same time I fear toimportune it too much, because I do not know what might happen then.I am a soldier, I must cling to that.
Wearily I stand up and look out of the window. Then I take one ofthe books, intending to read, and turn over the leaves. But I put itaway and take out another. There are passages in it that have beenmarked. I look, turn over the pages, take up fresh books. Alreadythey are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers,magazines, letters.
I stand there dumb. As before a judge.
Dejected.
Words, Words, Words--they do not reach me.
Slowly I place the books back in the shelves.
Nevermore.
Quietly, I go out of the room.
Still I do not give up hope. I do not, indeed, go to my room anymore, but comfort myself with the thought that a few days are notenough to judge by. Afterwards--later on--there is plenty of timefor that.
So I go over to see Mittelstaedt in the barracks, and we sit in hisroom, there is an atmosphere about it that I do not like but withwhich I am quite familiar.
Mittelstaedt has some news ready for me that electrifies me on thespot. He tells me Kantorek has been called up as a territorial.
"Just think of it," says he, and takes out a couple of good cigars,"I come back here from the hospital and bump right into him. Hestretches out his paw to me and bleats: 'Hullo Mittelstaedt, how areyou?'--I look at him and say: 'Territorial Kantorek, business isbusiness and schnapps is schnapps, you ought to know that well enoughyourself. Stand to attention when you speak to a superior officer.'You should have seen his face! A cross between a dud and a pickledcucumber. He tried once again to chum up. So I snubbed him a bitharder. Then he brought up his biggest guns and askedconfidentially: 'Would you like me to use my influence so that youcan take an emergency-exam.?' He was trying to remind me of thosethings, you know. Then I got mad and I reminded him of somethinginstead. 'Territorial Kantorek, two years ago you preached us intoenlisting; and among us there was one, Joseph Behm, who didn't wantto enlist. He was killed three months before he would have beencalled up in the ordinary way. If it had not been for you he wouldhave lived just that much longer. And now: Dismiss. You will hearfrom me later.' It was easy to get put in charge of his company.First thing I did was to take him to the stores and fit him out witha suitable equipment. You will see in a minute."
We go out to the parade ground. The company has fallen in.Mittelstaedt stands them at ease and inspects.
Then I see Kantorek and am scarcely able to stifle my laughter. Heis wearing a faded blue tunic. On the back and in the sleeves thereare big dark patches. The overcoat must have belonged to a giant.The black, worn breeches are just as much too short; they reachbarely halfway down his calf. The boots, tough old clod-hoppers,with turned-up toes and laces at the side, are much too big for him.But as a compensation the cap is too small, a terribly dirty, meanlittle pill-box. The whole rig-out is just pitiful.
Mittelstaedt stops in front of him: "Territorial Kantorek, do youcall those buttons polished? You seem as though you can never learn.Inadequate, Kantorek, quite inadequate----"
It makes me bubble with glee. In school Kantorek used to chastenMittelstaedt with exactly the same expression--"Inadequate,Mittelstaedt, quite inadequate."
Mittelstaedt continues to upbraid him: "Look at Boettcher now,there's a model for you to learn from."
I can hardly believe my eyes. Boettcher is there too, Boettcher, ourschool porter. And he is a model! Kantorek shoots a glance at me asif he would like to eat me. But I grin at him innocently, as thoughI do not recognize him any more.
Nothing could look more ludicrous than his forage-cap and hisuniform. And this is the object before whom we used to stand inanguish, as he sat up there enthroned at his desk, spearing at uswith his pencil for our mistakes in those irregular French verbs withwhich afterwards we made so little headway in France. That is barelytwo years ago--and now here stands Territorial Kantorek, the spellquite broken, with bent knees, arms like pothooks, unpolished buttonsand that ludicrous rig-out--an impossible soldier. I cannotreconcile this with the menacing figure at the schoolmaster's desk.I wonder what I, the old soldier, would do if this skin full of woeever dared to say to me again: "Bäumer, give the imperfect of'aller.'"
Then Mittelstaedt makes them practice skirmishing, and as a favourappoints Kantorek squad leader.
Now in skirmishing the squad leader has always to keep twenty pacesin front of his squad; if the order comes "On the march, about turn,"the line of skirmishers simply turns about, but the squad leader, whonow finds himself suddenly twenty paces in rear of the line, has torush up at the double and take his position again twenty paces infront of the squad. That makes altogether forty paces double-march.But no sooner has he arrived than the order "On the march, aboutturn," comes again and he once more has to race at top speed anotherforty paces to the other side. In this way the squad has made merelythe turn-about and a couple of paces while the squad-leader dashesbackwards and forwards like a fart on a curtain pole. That is one ofHimmelstoss' well-worn recipes.
Kantorek can hardly expect anything else from Mittelstaedt, for heonce messed up the latter's chance of promotion, and Mittelstaedtwould be a big fool not to make the best of such a good opportunityas this, before he goes back to the front again. A man might welldie easier after the army has given him just one such stroke of luck.
In the meantime Kantorek is dashing up and down like a wild-boar.After a while Mittelstaedt stops the skirmish and begins the veryimportant exercise of creeping.
On hands and knees, carrying his gun in regulation fashion, Kantorekshoves his absurd figure over the sand immediately in front of us.He is breathing hard, and his panting is music.
Mittelstaedt encourages Kantorek the Territorial with quotations fromKantorek the school-master. "Territorial Kantorek, we have the goodfortune to live in a great age, we must all humble ourselves and foronce put aside bitterness."
Kantorek sweats and spits out a dirty piece of wood that has lodgedin his teeth.
Mittelstaedt stoops down and says reproachfully: "And in the triflesnever lose sight of the great adventure, Territorial Kantorek!"
It amazes me that Kantorek does not explode with a bang, especiallywhen, during physical exercises, Mittelstaedt copies him toperfection, seizing him by the seat of his trousers as he is climbingalong the horizontal bar, so that he can just raise his chin abovethe beam, and then starts to give him good advice. That is exactlywhat Kantorek used to do to him at school.
The extra fatigues are next detailed off. "Kantorek and Boettcher,bread fatigue! Take the handcart with you."
In a couple of minutes the two set off together pushing the barrow.Kantorek in a fury walks with his head down. But the porter isdelighted to have scored light duty.
The bakehouse is away at the other end of the town, and the two mustgo there and back through the whole length of it.
"They've done that a couple of times already," grins Mittelstaedt."There are still a few people waiting to see them."
"Excellent," I say, "but hasn't he reported you yet?"
"He did try. Our C.O. laughed like the deuce when he heard thestory. He hasn't any time for schoolmasters. Besides, I'm sweetwith his daughter."
"He'll mess up the examination for you."
"I don't care," says Mittelstaedt calmly. "Besides, his complaintcame to nothing because I could show that he had had hardly anythingbut light duty."
"Couldn't you polish him up a bit?" I ask.
"He's too stupid, I couldn't be bothered," answers Mittelstaedtcontemptuously.
What is leave?--A pause that only makes everything after it so muchworse. Already the sense of parting begins to intrude itself. Mymother watches me silently,--I know she counts the days;--everymorning she is sad. It is one day less. She has put away my pack,she does not want to be reminded by it.
The hours pass quickly if a man broods. I pull myself together, andgo with my sister to the butcher's to get a pound of bones. That isa great luxury and people line up early in the morning and standwaiting. Many of them faint.
We have no luck. After waiting by turns for three hours the queuedisperses. The bones have not lasted out.
It is a good thing I get my rations. I bring them to my mother andin that way we all get something decent to eat.
The days grow ever more strained and my mother's eyes more sorrowful.Four days left now. I must go and see Kemmerich's mother.
I cannot write that down. This quaking, sobbing woman who shakes meand cries out on me: "Why are you living then, when he is dead?"--whodrowns me in tears and calls out: "What are you there for at all,child, when you----"--who drops into a chair and wails: "Did you seehim? Did you see him then? How did he die?"
I tell her he was shot through the heart and died instantaneously.She looks at me, she doubts me: "You lie. I know better. I havefelt how terribly he died. I have heard his voice at night, I havefelt his anguish--tell the truth, I want to know it, I must know it."
"No," I say, "I was beside him. He died at once."
She pleads with me gently: "Tell me. You must tell me. I know youwant to comfort me, but don't you see, you torment me far more thanif you told me the truth? I cannot bear the uncertainty. Tell mehow it was and even though it will be terrible, it will be far betterthan what I have to think if you don't."
I will never tell her, she can make mincemeat out of me first. Iconsole her, but she strikes me as rather stupid all the same. Whydoesn't she stop worrying? Kemmerich will stay dead whether sheknows about it or not. When a man has seen so many dead he cannotunderstand any longer why there should be so much anguish over asingle individual. So I say rather impatiently: "He diedimmediately. He felt absolutely nothing at all. His face was quitecalm."
She is silent. Then she says slowly: "Will you swear it?"
"Yes."
"By everything that is sacred to you?"
Good God, what is there that is sacred to me?--such things changepretty quickly with us.
"Yes, he died at once."
"Are you willing never to come back yourself, if it isn't true?"
"May I never come back if he wasn't killed instantaneously."
I would swear to anything. But she seems to believe me. She moansand weeps steadily. I have to tell how it happened so I invent astory and I almost believe it myself.
As I leave she kisses me and gives me a picture of him. In hisrecruit's uniform he leans on a round rustic table with legs made ofbirch branches. Behind him a wood is painted on a curtain, and onthe table stands a mug of beer.
It is the last evening at home. Everyone is silent. I go to bedearly, I seize the pillow, press it against myself and bury my headin it. Who knows if I will ever lie in a feather bed again?
Late in the night my mother comes into my room. She thinks I amasleep, and I pretend to be so. To talk, to stay awake with oneanother, it is too hard.
She sits long into the night although she is in pain and oftenwrithes. At last I can bear it no longer, and pretend I have justwakened up.
"Go and sleep, mother, you will catch cold here."
"I can sleep enough later," she says.
I sit up. "I don't go straight back to the front, mother. I have todo four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from there oneSunday, perhaps."
She is silent. Then she asks gently: "Are you very much afraid?"
"No, mother."
"I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women outin France. They are no good."
Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child--why can I not putmy head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong andself-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted, too, indeedI am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang my short,boy's trousers--it is such a little time ago, why is it over?
"Where we are there aren't any women, mother," I say as calmly as Ican.
"And be very careful at the front, Paul."
Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die withyou. What poor wretches we are!
"Yes, mother, I will."
"I will pray for you every day, Paul."
Ah! Mother, Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through theyears, where the burden of all this misery lies on us no more, backto you and me alone, Mother!
"Perhaps you can get a job that is not so dangerous."
"Yes, mother, perhaps I can get into the cook-house, that can easilybe done."
"You do it then, and if the others say anything----"
"That won't worry me, mother----"
She sighs. Her face is a white gleam in the darkness.
"Now you must go to sleep, mother."
She does not reply. I get up and wrap my cover round her shoulders.
She supports herself on my arm, she is in pain. And so I take her toher room. I stay with her a little while.
"And you must get well again, mother, before I come back."
"Yes, yes, my child."
"You ought not to send your things to me, mother. We have plenty toeat out there. You can make much better use of them here."
How destitute she lies there in her bed, she, that loves me more thanall the world. As I am about to leave, she says hastily: "I have twopairs of under-pants for you. They are all wool. They will keep youwarm. You must not forget to put them in your pack."
Ah! Mother! I know what these underpants have cost you in waiting,and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, Mother! how can it be that Imust part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me butyou. Here I sit and there you are lying, and we have so much to say,that we could never say it.
"Good-night, mother."
"Good-night, my child."
The room is dark. I hear my mother's breathing, and the ticking ofthe clock. Outside the window the wind blows and the chestnut treesrustle.
On the landing I stumble over my pack which lies there already madeup, because I have to leave early in the morning.
I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with myfists. I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferentand often hopeless;--I will never be able to be so again. I was asoldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother,for everything that is so comfortless and without end.
I ought never to have come on leave.
CHAPTER VIII
I already know the camp on the moors. It was here that Himmelstossgave Tjaden his education. But now I know hardly anyone here; asever, all is altered. There are only a few people that I haveoccasionally met before.
I go through the routine mechanically. In the evenings I generallygo to the Soldiers' Home, where the newspapers are laid out, butwhich I do not read; still, there is a piano there that I am gladenough to play on. Two girls are in attendance, one of them is young.
The camp is surrounded with high barbed-wire fences. If we come backlate from the Soldiers' Home we have to show passes. But those whoare on good terms with the guard can get through, of course.
Between the junipers and the birch trees on the moor we practicecompany-drill each day. It is bearable if one expects nothingbetter. We advance at a run, fling ourselves down, and our pantingbreath moves the stalks of the grasses and the flowers of the heatherto and fro. Looked at so closely one sees the fine sand is composedof millions of the tiniest pebbles as clear as if they had been madein a laboratory It is strangely inviting to dig one's hands into it.
But most beautiful are the woods with their line of birch trees.Their colour changes with every minute. Now the stems gleam purestwhite, and between them airy and silken, hangs the pastel-green ofthe leaves; the next moment all changes to an opalescent blue, as theshivering breezes pass down from the heights and touch the greenlightly away; and again in one place it deepens almost to black as acloud passes over the sun. And this shadow moves like a ghostthrough the dim trunks and passes far out over the moor to thesky--then the birches stand out again like gay banners on whitepoles, with their red and gold patches of autumn-tinted leaves.
I often become so lost in the play of soft light and transparentshadow, that I almost fail to hear the commands. It is when one isalone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her. And here Ihave not much companionship, and do not even desire it. We are toolittle acquainted with one another to do more than joke a bit andplay poker or nap in the evenings.
Alongside our camp is the big Russian prison camp. It is separatedfrom us by a wire fence, but in spite of this the prisoners comeacross to us. They seem nervous and fearful, though most of them arebig fellows with beards--they look like meek, scolded, St. Bernarddogs.
They slink about our camp and pick over the garbage tins. One canimagine what they find there. With us food is pretty scarce and nonetoo good at that--turnips cut into six pieces and boiled in water,and unwashed carrot tops;--mouldy potatoes are tit-bits, and thechief luxury is a thin rice soup in which float little bits ofbeef-sinew, but these are cut up so small that they take a lot offinding.
Everything gets eaten, notwithstanding, and if ever anyone is so welloff as not to want all his share, there are a dozen others standingby ready to relieve him of it. Only the dregs that the ladle cannotreach are tipped out and thrown into the garbage tins. Along withthat sometimes go a few turnip peelings, mouldy bread crusts and allkinds of muck.
This thin, miserable, dirty garbage is the objective of theprisoners. They pick it out of the stinking tins greedily and go offwith it under their blouses.
It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They havefaces that make one think--honest peasant faces, broad foreheads,broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, and thick hair.
They ought to be put to threshing, reaping, and apple picking. Theylook just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland.
It is distressing to watch their movements, to see them begging forsomething to eat. They are all rather feeble, for they only getenough nourishment to keep them from starving. Ourselves we have nothad sufficient to eat for long enough. They have dysentery;furtively many of them display the blood-stained tails of theirshirts. Their backs, their necks are bent, their knees sag, theirheads droop as they stretch out their hands and beg in the few wordsof German that they know--beg with those soft, deep, musical voices,that are like warm stoves and cosy rooms at home.
Some men there are who give them a kick, so that they fall over;--butthose are not many. The majority do nothing to them, just ignorethem. Occasionally, when they are too grovelling, it makes a man madand then he kicks them. If only they would not look at one so--What great misery can be in two such small spots, no bigger than aman's thumb--in their eyes!
They come over to the camp in the evenings and trade. They exchangewhatever they possess for bread. Often they have fair success,because they have very good boots and ours are bad. The leather oftheir knee boots is wonderfully soft, like suede. The peasants amongus who get tit bits sent from home can afford to trade. The price ofa pair of boots is about two or three loaves of army bread, or a loafof bread and a small, tough ham sausage.
But most of the Russians have long since parted with whatever thingsthey had. Now they wear only the most pitiful clothing, and try toexchange little carvings and objects that they have made out of shellfragments and copper driving bands. Of course, they don't get muchfor such things, though they may have taken immense pains withthem--they go for a slice or two of bread. Our peasants are hard andcunning when they bargain. They hold the piece of bread or sausageright under the nose of the Russian till he grows pale with greed andhis eyes bulge and then he will give anything for it. The peasantswrap up their booty with the utmost solemnity, and then get out theirbig pocket knives, and slowly and deliberately cut off a slice ofbread for themselves from their supply and with every mouthful take apiece of the good, tough sausage and so reward themselves with a goodfeed. It is distressing to watch them take their afternoon mealthus; one would like to crack them over their thick pates. Theyrarely give anything away. How little we understand one another!
I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one seestheir forms move like sick storks, like great birds. They come closeup to the wire fence and lean their faces against it; their fingershook round the mesh. Often many stand side by side, and breathe thewind that comes down from the moors and the forest.
They rarely speak and then only a few words. They are more human andmore brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are. Butperhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be moreunfortunate than us. Anyway the war is over so far as they areconcerned. But to wait for dysentery is not much of a life either.
The Territorials who are in charge of them say that they were muchmore lively at first. They used to have intrigues among themselves,as always happens, and it would often come to blows and knives. Butnow they are quite apathetic, and listless; most of them do notmasturbate any more, they are so feeble, though occasionally it is sobad that they do it barracks fashion.
They stand at the wire fence; sometimes one goes away and thenanother at once takes his place in the line. Most of them aresilent; occasionally one begs a cigarette butt.
I see their dark forms, their beards move in the wind. I knownothing of them except that they are prisoners, and that is exactlywhat troubles me. Their life is obscure and guiltless;--if I couldknow more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they arewaiting for, what are their burdens, then my emotion would have anobject and might become sympathy. But as it is I perceive behindthem only the suffering of the creature, the awful melancholy of lifeand the pitilessness of men.
A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a wordof command might transform them into our friends. At some table adocument is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and thenfor years together that very crime on which formerly the world'scondemnation and severest penalty fell, becomes our highest aim. Butwho can draw such a distinction when he looks at these quiet men withtheir childlike faces and apostles' beards. Any non-commissionedofficer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupilthan they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and theyat us if they were free.
I am frightened: I dare think this way no more. This way lies theabyss. It is not now the time; but I will not lose these thoughts, Iwill keep them, shut them away until the war is ended. My heartbeats fast: this is the aim, the great, the sole aim, that I havethought of in the trenches; that I have looked for as the onlypossibility of existence after this annihilation of all humanfeeling; this is a task that will make life afterward worthy of thesehideous years.
I take out my cigarettes, break each one in half and give them to theRussians. They bow to me and then they light the cigarettes. Nowred points glow in every face. They comfort me; it looks as thoughthere were little windows in dark village cottages saying that behindthem are rooms full of peace.
The days go by. On a foggy morning another of the Russians isburied; almost every day one of them dies. I am on guard during theburial. The prisoners sing a chorale, they sing in parts, and itsounds almost as if there were no voices, but an organ far away onthe moor.
The burial is quickly over.
In the evening they stand again at the wire fence and the wind comesdown to them from the beech woods. The stars are cold.
I now know a few of those who speak a little German. There is amusician amongst them, he says he used to be a violinist in Berlin.When he hears that I can play the piano he fetches his violin andplays. The others sit down and lean their backs against the fence.He stands up and plays, sometimes he has that absent expression whichviolinists get when they close their eyes; or again he sways theinstrument to the rhythm and smiles across to me.
He plays mostly folk songs and the others hum with him. They arelike a country of dark hills that sing far down under the ground.The sound of the violin stands like a slender girl above it and isclear and alone. The voices cease and the violin continues alone.In the night it is so thin it sounds frozen; one must stand close up;it would be much better in a room;--out here it makes a man grow sad.
Because I have already had a long leave I get none on Sundays. Sothe last Sunday before I go back to the front my father and eldestsister come over to see me. All day we sit in the Soldiers' Home.Where else could we go, we don't want to stay in the camp. Aboutmidday we go for a walk on the moors.
The hours are a torture; we do not know what to talk about, so wespeak of my mother's illness. It is now definitely cancer, she isalready in the hospital and will be operated on shortly. The doctorshope she will recover, but we have never heard of cancer being cured.
"Where is she then?" I ask.
"In the Luisa Hospital," says my father.
"In which class?"
"Third. We must wait till we know what the operation costs. Shewanted to be in the third herself. She said that then she would havesome company. And besides it is cheaper."
"So she is lying there with all those people. If only she couldsleep properly."
My father nods. His face is broken and full of furrows. My motherhas always been sickly; and though she has only gone to the hospitalwhen she has been compelled to, it has cost a great deal of money,and my father's life has been practically given up to it.
"If only I knew how much the operation costs," says he.
"Have you not asked?"
"Not directly, I cannot do that--the surgeon might take it amiss andthat would not do, he must operate on mother."
Yes, I think bitterly, that's how it is with us, and with all poorpeople. They don't dare to ask the price, but worry themselvesdreadfully beforehand about it; but the others, for whom it is notimportant, they settle the price first as a matter of course. Andthe doctor does not take it amiss from them.
"And the dressings afterwards are so expensive," says my father.
"Doesn't the Invalid's Fund pay anything toward it, then?" I ask.
"Mother has been ill too long."
"Have you any money at all?"
He shakes his head: "No, but I can do some overtime."
I know. He will stand at his desk folding and pasting and cuttinguntil twelve o'clock at night. At eight o'clock in the evening hewill eat some of the miserable rubbish they get in exchange for theirfood tickets, then he will take a powder for his headache and work on.
In order to cheer him up a bit I tell him a few stories, soldiers'jokes, and the like, about generals and sergeant-majors.
Afterwards I accompany them both to the railway station. They giveme a pot of jam and a bag of potato-cakes that my mother has made forme.
Then they go off and I return to the camp.
In the evening I spread the jam on the cakes and eat some. But Ihave no taste for them. So I go out to give them to the Russians.Then it occurs to me that my mother cooked them herself and that shewas probably in pain as she stood before the hot stove. I put thebag back in my pack and take only two cakes to the Russians.
CHAPTER IX
We travel for several days. The first aeroplanes appear in the sky.We roll on past transport lines. Guns, guns. The light railwaypicks us up. I search for my regiment. No one knows exactly whereit lies. Somewhere or other I put up for the night, somewhere orother I receive provisions and a few vague instructions. And so withmy pack and my rifle I set out again on the way.
By the time I come up they are no longer in that devastated place. Ihear we have become one of the flying divisions that are pushed inwherever it is hottest. That does not sound cheerful to me. Theytell me of heavy losses that we have been having. I inquire afterKat and Albert. No one knows anything of them.
I search farther and wander about here and there; it is a wonderfulfeeling. One night and then another I camp out like a Red Indian.Then at last I get some definite information, and by the afternoon Iam able to report to the Orderly Room.
The sergeant-major detains me there. The company comes back in twodays' time. There is no object in sending me up now.
"What was it like on leave?" he asks, "pretty good, eh?"
"In parts," I say.
"Yes," he sighs, "yes, if a man didn't have to come away again. Thesecond half is always rather messed up by that."
I loaf around until the company comes back in the early morning,grey, dirty, soured, and gloomy. Then I jump up, push in amongstthem, my eyes searching. There is Tjaden, there is Müller blowinghis nose, and there are Kat and Kropp. We arrange our sacks of strawside by side. I have an uneasy conscience when I look at them, andyet without any good reason. Before we turn in I bring out the restof the potato-cakes and jam so that they can have some too.
The two outer cakes are mouldy, still it is possible to eat them. Ikeep those for myself and give the fresh ones to Kat and Kropp.
Kat chews and says: "These are from your mother?"
I nod.
"Good," says he, "I can tell by the taste."
I could almost weep. I can hardly control myself any longer. But itwill soon be all right again back here with Kat and Albert. This iswhere I belong.
"You've been lucky," whispers Kropp to me before we drop off tosleep, "they say we are going to Russia."
To Russia. It's not much of a war over there.
In the distance the front thunders. The walls of the hut rattle.
There's a great deal of polishing being done. We are inspected atevery turn. Everything that is torn is exchanged for new. I score aspotless new tunic out of it and Kat, of course, an entire outfit. Arumour is going round that there may be peace, but the other story ismore likely--that we are bound for Russia. Still, what do we neednew things for in Russia? At last it leaks out--the Kaiser is comingto review us. Hence all the inspections.
For eight whole days one would suppose we were in a base-camp, thereis so much drill and fuss. Everyone is peevish and touchy, we do nottake kindly to all this polishing, much less to parades. Such thingsexasperate a soldier more than the front-line.
At last the moment arrives. We stand up stiff and the Kaiserappears. We are curious to see what he looks like. He stalks alongthe line, and I am really rather disappointed; judging from hispictures I imagined him to be bigger and more powerfully built, andabove all to have a thundering voice.
He distributes Iron Crosses and speaks to this man and to that. Thenwe march off.
Afterwards we discuss it. Tjaden says with astonishment:
"So that is the All-Highest! And everyone, bar nobody, has to standup stiff in front of him!" He meditates: "Hindenburg too, he has tostand up stiff to him, eh?"
"Sure," says Kat.
Tjaden hasn't finished yet. He thinks for a while and then asks:"And would a king have to stand up stiff to an emperor?"
None of us is quite sure about it, but we don't suppose so. They areboth so exalted that standing strictly to attention is probably notinsisted on.
"What rot you do hatch out," says Kat. "The main point is that youhave to stand stiff yourself."
But Tjaden is quite fascinated. His otherwise prosy fancy is blowingbubbles. "But look," he announces, "I simply can't believe that anemperor has to go to the latrine the same as I have."
"You can bet your boots on it."
"Four and a half-wit make seven," says Kat. "You've got a maggot inyour brain, Tjaden, just you run along to the latrine quick, and getyour head clear, so that you don't talk like a two-year-old."
Tjaden disappears.
"But what I would like to know," says Albert, "is whether there wouldnot have been a war if the Kaiser had said No."
"I'm sure of this much," I interject, "he was against it from thefirst."
"Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people inthe world had said No."
"That's probable," I agree, "but they damned well said Yes."
"It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Kropp, "we are hereto protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protecttheir fatherland. Now, who's in the right?"
"Perhaps both," say I, without believing it.
"Yes, well now," pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive meinto a corner, "but our professors and parsons and newspapers saythat we are the only ones that are right, and let's hope so;--but theFrench professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is ontheir side, now what about that?"
"That I don't know," I say, "but whichever way it is there's war allthe same and every month more countries coming in."
Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins theconversation, wondering just how a war gets started.
"Mostly by one country badly offending another," answers Albert witha slight air of superiority.
Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. "A country? I don't follow. Amountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river,or a wood, or a field of wheat."
"Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?"growls Kropp, "I don't mean that at all. One people offends theother----"
"Then I haven't any business here at all," replies Tjaden, "I don'tfeel myself offended."
"Well, let me tell you," says Albert sourly, "it doesn't apply totramps like you."
"Then I can be going home right away," retorts Tjaden, and we alllaugh.
"Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State----" exclaimsMüller.
"State, State"--Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, "Gendarmes,police, taxes, that's your State;--if that's what you are talkingabout, no thank you."
"That's right," says Kat, "you've said something for once, Tjaden.State and home-country, there's a big difference."
"But they go together," insists Kropp, "without the State therewouldn't be any home-country."
"True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. Andin France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poorclerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemakerwant to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen aFrenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with themajority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren't asked about it anymore than we were."
"Then what exactly is the war for?" asks Tjaden.
Kat shrugs his shoulders. "There must be some people to whom the waris useful."
"Well, I'm not one of them," grins Tjaden.
"Not you, nor anybody else here."
"Who are they then?" persists Tjaden. "It isn't any use to theKaiser either. He has everything he can want already."
"I'm not so sure about that," contradicts Kat, "he has not had a warup till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war,otherwise he wouldn't become famous. You look in your school books."
"And generals too," adds Detering, "they become famous through war."
"Even more famous than emperors," adds Kat.
"There are other people back behind there who profit by the war,that's certain," growls Detering.
"I think it is more a kind of fever," says Albert. "No one inparticular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn'twant the war, the others say the same thing--and yet half the worldis in it all the same."
"But there are more lies told by the other side than by us," say I;"just think of those pamphlets the prisoners have on them, where itsays that we eat Belgian children. The fellows who write that oughtto go and hang themselves. They are the real culprits."
Müller gets up. "Anyway, it is better that the war is here insteadof in Germany. Just you take a look at the shell-holes."
"True," assents Tjaden, "but no war at all would be better still."
He is quite proud of himself because he has for once scored over usvolunteers. And his opinion is quite typical here, one meets it timeand again, and there is nothing with which one can properly counterit, because that is the limit of their comprehension of the factorsinvolved. The national feeling of the tommy resolves itself intothis--here he is. But that is the end of it; everything else fromjoining up onwards he criticizes from a practical point of view.
Albert lies down on the grass and growls angrily: "The best thing isnot to talk about the rotten business."
"It won't make any difference, that's sure," agrees Kat.
As for the windfall, we have to return almost all the new things andtake back our old rags again. The good ones were merely for theinspection.
Instead of going to Russia, we go up the line again. On the way wepass through a devastated wood with the tree trunks shattered and theground ploughed up.
At several places there are tremendous craters. "Great guns,something's hit that," I say to Kat.
"Trench mortars," he replies, and then points up at one of the trees.
In the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squattingin the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he isentirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the tophalf, the legs are missing.
"What can that mean?" I ask.
"He's been blown out of his clothes," mutters Tjaden.
"It's funny," says Kat, "we have seen that a couple of times now. Ifa mortar gets you it blows you almost clean out of your clothes.It's the concussion that does it."
I search around. And so it is. Here hang bits of uniform, andsomewhere else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human limb.Over there lies a body with nothing but a piece of the underpants onone leg and the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it isnaked and the clothes are hanging up in the tree. Both arms aremissing as though they had been pulled out. I discover one of themtwenty yards off in a shrub.
The dead man lies on his face. There, where the arm wounds are, theearth is black with blood. Underfoot the leaves are scratched up asthough the man had been kicking.
"That's no joke, Kat," say I.
"No more is a shell splinter in the belly," he replies, shrugging hisshoulders.
"But don't get tender-hearted," says Tjaden.
All this can only have happened a little while ago, the blood isstill fresh. As everybody we see there is dead we do not waste anymore time, but report the affair at the next stretcher-bearers' post.After all it is not our business to take these stretcher-bearers'jobs away from them.
A patrol has to be sent out to discover just how far the enemyposition is advanced. Since my leave I feel a certain strangeattachment to the other fellows, and so I volunteer to go with them.We agree on a plan, slip out through the wire and then divide andcreep forward separately. After a while I find a shallow shell-holeand crawl into it. From here I peer forward.
There is moderate machine-gun fire. It sweeps across from alldirections, not very heavy, but always sufficient to make one keepdown.
A parachute star-shell opens out. The ground lies stark in the palelight, and then the darkness shuts down again blacker than ever. Inthe trenches we were told there were black troops in front of us.That is nasty, it is hard to see them; they are very good atpatrolling, too. And oddly enough they are often quite stupid; forinstance, both Kat and Kropp were once able to shoot down a blackenemy patrol because the fellows in their enthusiasm for cigarettessmoked while they were creeping about. Kat and Albert had simply toaim at the glowing ends of the cigarettes.
A bomb or something lands close beside me. I have not heard itcoming and am terrified. At the same moment a senseless fear takeshold on me. Here I am alone and almost helpless in thedark--perhaps two other eyes have been watching me for a long whilefrom another shell-hole in front of me, and a bomb lies ready to blowme to pieces. I try to pull myself together. It is not my firstpatrol and not a particularly risky one. But it is the first sincemy leave, and besides, the lie of the land is still rather strange tome.
I tell myself that my alarm is absurd, that there is probably nothingat all there in the darkness watching me, because otherwise themissile would not have landed so flat.
It is in vain. In whirling confusion my thoughts hum in my brain--Ihear the warning voice of my mother, I see the Russians with theflowing beards leaning against the wire fence, I have a brightpicture of a canteen with stools, of a cinema in Valenciennes;tormented, terrified, in my imagination I see the grey, impalpablemuzzle of a rifle which moves noiselessly before me whichever way Itry to turn my head. The sweat breaks out from every pore.
I still continue to lie in my shallow bowl. I look at the time; onlya few minutes have passed. My forehead is wet, the sockets of myeyes are damp, my hands tremble, and I am panting softly. It isnothing but an awful spasm of fear, a simple animal fear of pokingout my head and crawling on farther.
All my efforts subside like froth into the one desire to be able justto stay lying there. My limbs are glued to the earth. I make a vainattempt;--they refuse to come away. I press myself down on theearth, I cannot go forward, I make up my mind to stay lying there.
But immediately the wave floods over me anew, a mingled sense ofshame, of remorse, and yet at the same time of security. I raisemyself up a little to take a look around.
My eyes burn with staring into the dark. A star-shell goes up;--Iduck down again.
I wage a wild and senseless fight, I want to get out of the hollowand yet slide back into it again, I say "You must, it is yourcomrades, it is not any idiotic command," and again: "What does itmatter to me, I have only one life to lose----"
That is the result of all this leave, I reproach myself bitterly.But I cannot convince myself, I become terribly faint. I raisemyself slowly and reach forward with my arms, dragging my body afterme and then lie on the edge of the shell-hole, half in and half out.
There I hear sounds and drop back. Suspicious sounds can be detectedclearly despite the noise of the artillery-fire. I listen; the soundis behind me. They are our people moving along the trench. Now Ihear muffled voices. To judge by the tone that might be Kat talking.
At once a new warmth flows through me. These voices, these few quietwords, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a boundfrom the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had beenalmost destroyed. They are more to me than life, these voices, theyare more than motherliness and more than fear; they are thestrongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are thevoices of my comrades.
I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in thedarkness;--I belong to them and they to me, we all share the samefear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, aharder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, thesewords that have saved me and will stand by me.
Cautiously I glide out over the edge and snake my way forward. Ishuffle along on all fours a bit farther, I keep track of mybearings, look around me and observe the distribution of the gunfireso as to be able to find my way back. Then I try to get in touchwith the others.
I am still afraid, but it is an intelligent fear, an extraordinarilyheightened caution. The night is windy and shadows flit hither andthither in the flicker of the gunfire. It reveals too little and toomuch. Often I peer ahead, but always for nothing. Thus I advance along way and then turn back in a wide curve. I have not establishedtouch with the others. Every yard nearer our trench fills me withconfidence;--and with haste, too. It would be bad to get lost now.
Then a new fear lays hold of me. I can no longer remember thedirection. Quiet, I squat in a shell-hole and try to locate myself.More than once it has happened that some fellow has jumped joyfullyinto a trench only then to discover that it was the wrong one.
After a little time I listen again, but still I am not sure. Theconfusion of shell-holes now seems so bewildering that I can nolonger tell in my agitation which way I should go. Perhaps I amcrawling parallel to the lines, and that might go on for ever. So Icrawl round once again in a wide curve.
These damned rockets! They seem to burn for an hour, and a mancannot make the least movement without bringing the bullets whistlinground.
But there is nothing for it, I must get out. Falteringly I work myway farther, I move off over the ground like a crab and rip my handssorely on the jagged splinters, as sharp as razor blades. Often Ithink that the sky is becoming lighter on the horizon, but it may bemerely my imagination. Then gradually I realize that to crawl in theright direction is a matter of life or death.
A shell crashes. Almost immediately two others. And then it beginsin earnest. A bombardment. Machine-guns rattle. Now there isnothing for it but to stay lying low. Apparently an attack iscoming. Everywhere the rockets shoot up. Unceasing.
I lie huddled in a large shell-hole, my legs in the water up to thebelly. When the attack starts I will let myself fall into the water,with my face as deep in the mud as I can keep it without suffocating.I must pretend to be dead.
Suddenly I hear the barrage lift. At once I slip down into thewater, my helmet on the nape of my neck and my mouth just clear sothat I can get a breath of air.
I lie motionless;--somewhere something clanks, it stamps and stumblesnearer--all my nerves become taut and icy. It clatters over me andaway, the first wave has passed. I have but this one shatteringthought: What will you do if someone jumps into your shell-hole?--Swiftly I pull out my little dagger, grasp it fast and bury it in myhand once again under the mud. If anyone jumps in here I will go forhim; it hammers in my forehead; at once, stab him clean through thethroat, so that he cannot call out; that's the only way; he will bejust as frightened as I am, when in terror we fall upon one another,then I must be first.
Now our batteries are firing. A shell lands near me. That makes mesavage with fury, all it needs now is to be killed by our own shells;I curse and grind my teeth in the mud; it is a raving frenzy; in theend all I can do is groan and pray.
The crash of the shells bursts in my ears. If our fellows make acounter-raid I will be saved. I press my head against the earth andlisten to the muffled thunder, like the explosions of quarrying--andraise it again to listen for the sounds on top.
The machine-guns rattle. I know our barbed wire entanglements arestrong and almost undamaged;--parts of them are charged with apowerful electric current. The rifle fire increases. They have notbroken through; they have to retreat.
I sink down again, huddled, strained to the uttermost. The banging,the creeping, the clanging becomes audible. One single cry yellingamongst it all. They are raked with fire, the attack is repulsed.
Already it has become somewhat lighter. Steps hasten over me. Thefirst. Gone. Again, another. The rattle of machine-guns becomes anunbroken chain. Just as I am about to turn round a little, somethingheavy stumbles, and with a crash a body falls over me into theshell-hole, slips down, and lies across me----
I do not think at all, I make no decision--I strike madly home, andfeel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, andcollapses. When I recover myself, my hand is sticky and wet.
The man gurgles. It sounds to me as though he bellows, every gaspingbreath is like a cry, a thunder--but it is only my heart pounding. Iwant to stop his mouth, stuff it with earth, stab him again, he mustbe quiet, he is betraying me; now at last I regain control of myself,but have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot any more lift myhand against him.
So I crawl away to the farthest corner and stay there, my eyes gluedon him, my hand grasping the knife--ready, if he stirs, to spring athim again. But he won't do so any more, I can hear that already inhis gurgling.
I can see him indistinctly. I have but one desire, to get away. Ifit is not soon it will be too light; it will be difficult enough now.Then as I try to raise up my head I see it is impossible already.The machine-gun fire so sweeps the ground that I would be shotthrough and through before I could make one jump.
I test it once with my helmet, which I take off and hold up to findout the level of the shots. The next moment it is knocked out of myhand by a bullet. The fire is sweeping very low over the ground. Iam not far enough from the enemy line to escape being picked off byone of the snipers if I attempt to get away.
The light increases. Burning I wait for our attack. My hands arewhite at the knuckles, I clench them so tightly in my longing for thefire to cease so that my comrades may come.
Minute after minute trickles away. I dare not look again at the darkfigure in the shell-hole. With an effort I look past it and wait,wait. The bullets hiss, they make a steel net, never ceasing, neverceasing.
Then I notice my bloody hand and suddenly feel nauseated. I takesome earth and rub the skin with it, now my hand is muddy and theblood cannot be seen any more.
The fire does not diminish. It is equally heavy from both sides.Our fellows have probably given me up for lost long ago.
It is early morning, clear and grey. The gurgling continues, I stopmy ears, but soon take my fingers away again, because then I cannothear the other sound.
The figure opposite me moves. I shrink together and involuntarilylook at it. Then my eyes remain glued to it. A man with a smallpointed beard lies there, his head is fallen to one side, one arm ishalf-bent, his head rests helplessly upon it. The other hand lies onhis chest, it is bloody.
He is dead, I say to myself, he must be dead, he doesn't feelanything any more; it is only the body that is gurgling there. Thenthe head tries to raise itself, for a moment the groaning becomeslouder, his forehead sinks back upon his arm. The man is not dead,he is dying, but he is not dead. I drag myself toward him, hesitate,support myself on my hands, creep a bit farther, wait, again aterrible journey of three yards, a long, a terrible journey. At lastI am beside him.
Then he opens his eyes. He must have heard me and gazes at me with alook of utter terror. The body lies still, but in the eyes there issuch an extraordinary expression of flight that for a moment I thinkthey have power enough to carry the body off with them. Hundreds ofmiles away with one bound. The body is still, perfectly still,without sound, the gurgle has ceased, but the eyes cry out, yell, allthe life is gathered together in them for one tremendous effort toflee, gathered together there in a dreadful terror of death, of me.
My legs give way and I drop on my elbows. "No, no," I whisper.
The eyes follow me. I am powerless to move so long as they are there.
Then his hand slips slowly from his breast, only a little bit, itsinks just a few inches, but this movement breaks the power of theeyes. I bend forward, shake my head and whisper: "No, no, no," Iraise one hand, I must show him that I want to help him, I stroke hisforehead.
The eyes shrink back as the hand comes, then they lose their stare,the eyelids droop lower, the tension is past. I open his collar andplace his head more comfortably upright.
His mouth stands half open, it tries to form words. The lips aredry. My water bottle is not there. I have not brought it with me.But there is water in the mud, down at the bottom of the crater. Iclimb down, take out my handkerchief, spread it out, push it underand scoop up the yellow water that strains through into the hollow ofmy hand.
He gulps it down. I fetch some more. Then I unbutton his tunic inorder to bandage him if it is possible. In any case I must do it, sothat if the fellows over there capture me they will see that I wantedto help him, and so will not shoot me. He tries to resist, but hishand is too feeble. The shirt is stuck and will not come away, it isbuttoned at the back. So there is nothing for it but to cut it off.
I look for the knife and find it again. But when I begin to cut theshirt the eyes open once more and the cry is in them again and thedemented expression, so that I must close them, press them shut andwhisper: "I want to help you, Comrade, camerade, camerade,camerade----" eagerly repeating the word, to make him understand.
There are three stabs. My field dressing covers them, the blood runsout under it, I press it tighter; there; he groans.
That is all I can do. Now we must wait, wait.
These hours.... The gurgling starts again--but how slowly a mandies! For this I know--he cannot be saved. Indeed, I have tried totell myself that he will be, but at noon this pretence breaks downand melts before his groans. If only I had not lost my revolvercrawling about, I would shoot him. Stab him I cannot.
By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. Hunger devoursme, I could almost weep for something to eat, I cannot struggleagainst it. Again and again I fetch water for the dying man anddrink some myself.
This is the first man I have killed with my hands, whom I can seeclose at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Müllerhave experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happensto many, in hand-to-hand fighting especially--
But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him,he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and mythoughts.
I would give much if he would but stay alive. It is hard to lie hereand to have to see and hear him.
In the afternoon, about three, he is dead.
I breathe freely again. But only for a short time. Soon the silenceis more unbearable than the groans. I wish the gurgling were thereagain, gasping, hoarse, now whistling softly and again hoarse andloud.
It is mad, what I do. But I must do something. I prop the dead manup again so that he lies comfortably although he feels nothing anymore. I close his eyes. They are brown, his hair is black and a bitcurly at the sides.
The mouth is full and soft beneath his moustache; the nose isslightly arched, the skin brownish; it is now not so pale as it wasbefore, when he was still alive. For a moment the face seems almosthealthy;--then it collapses suddenly into the strange face of thedead that I have so often seen, strange faces, all alike.
No doubt his wife still thinks of him; she does not know what hashappened. He looks as if he would often have written to her;--shewill still be getting mail from him--To-morrow, in a week'stime--perhaps even a stray letter a month hence. She will read it,and in it he will be speaking to her.
My state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts. Whatwould his wife look like? Like the little brunette on the other sideof the canal? Does she belong to me now? Perhaps by this act shebecomes mine. I wish Kantorek were sitting here beside me. If mymother could see me----. The dead man might have had thirty moreyears of life if only I had impressed the way back to our trench moresharply on my memory. If only he had run two yards farther to theleft, he might now be sitting in the trench over there and writing afresh letter to his wife.
But I will get no further that way; for that is the fate of all ofus: if Kemmerich's leg had been six inches to the right; if HaieWesthus had bent his back three inches further forward----
The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him andsay to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped inhere again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But youwere only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mindand called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction Istabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; nowI see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me,comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us thatyou are just poor devils like us, that your mothers are just asanxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and thesame dying and the same agony--. Forgive me, comrade; how could yoube my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform youcould be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years ofmy life, comrade, and stand up--take more, for I do not know what Ican even attempt to do with it now."
It is quiet, the front is still except for the crackle of rifle fire.The bullets rain over, they are not fired haphazard, but shrewdlyaimed from all sides. I cannot get out.
"I will write to your wife," I say hastily to the dead man, "I willwrite to her, she must hear it from me, I will tell her everything Ihave told you, she shall not suffer, I will help her, and yourparents too, and your child----"
His tunic is half open. The pocket-book is easy to find. But Ihesitate to open it. In it is the book with his name. So long as Ido not know his name perhaps I may still forget him, time willobliterate it, this picture. But his name, it is a nail that will behammered into me and never come out again. It has the power torecall this for ever, it will always come back and stand before me.
Irresolutely I take the wallet in my hand. It slips out of my handand falls open. Some pictures and letters drop out. I gather themup and want to put them back again, but the strain I am under, theuncertainty, the hunger, the danger, these hours with the dead manhave confused me, I want to hasten the relief, to intensify and toend the torture, as one strikes an unendurably painful hand againstthe trunk of a tree, regardless of everything.
There are portraits of a woman and a little girl, small amateurphotographs taken against an ivy-clad wall. Along with them areletters. I take them out and try to read them. Most of it I do notunderstand, it is so hard to decipher and I know scarcely any French.But each word I translate pierces me like a shot in the chest;--likea stab in the chest.
My brain is taxed beyond endurance. But I realize this much, that Iwill never dare to write to these people as I intended. Impossible.I look at the portraits once more; they are clearly not rich people.I might send them money anonymously if I earn anything later on. Iseize upon that, it is at least something to hold on to. This deadman is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promiseeverything, in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean tolive only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placatehim--and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off inthis way and perhaps even yet get out of this; it is a littlestratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it. SoI open the book and read slowly:--Gerard Duval, compositor.
With the dead man's pencil I write the address on an envelope, thenswiftly thrust everything back into his tunic.
I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer, Ithink confusedly, be a printer, printer----
By afternoon I am calmer. My fear was groundless. The name troublesme no more. The madness passes. "Comrade," I say to the dead man,but I say it calmly, "To-day you, to-morrow me. But if I come out ofit, comrade, I will fight against this, that has struck us both down;from you, taken life--and from me--? Life also. I promise you,comrade. It shall never happen again."
The sun strikes low. I am stupefied with exhaustion and hunger.Yesterday is like a fog to me, there is no hope of getting out ofthis yet. I fall into a doze and do not at first realize thatevening is approaching. The twilight comes. It seems to me to comequickly now. One hour more. If it were summer, it would be threehours more. One hour more.
Now suddenly I begin to tremble; something might happen in theinterval. I think no more of the dead man, he is of no consequenceto me now. With one bound the lust to live flares up again andeverything that has filled my thoughts goes down before it. Now,merely to avert any ill-luck, I babble mechanically: "I will fulfileverything, fulfil everything I have promised you----" but already Iknow that I shall not do so.
Suddenly it occurs to me that my own comrades may fire on me as Icreep up; they do not know I am coming. I will call out as soon as Ican so that they will recognize me. I will stay lying in front ofthe trench until they answer me.
The first star. The front remains quiet. I breathe deeply and talkto myself in my excitement: "No foolishness now, Paul--Quiet, Paul,quiet--then you will be saved, Paul." When I use my Christian nameit works as though someone else spoke to me, it has more power.
The darkness grows. My excitement subsides, I wait cautiously untilthe first rocket goes up. Then I crawl out of the shell-hole. Ihave forgotten the dead man. Before me lies the on-coming night andthe pale gleaming field. I fix my eye on a shell-hole; the momentthe light dies I scurry over into it, grope farther, spring into thenext, duck down, scramble onward.
I come nearer. There, by the light of a rocket I see something movein the wire, then it stiffens and lies still. Next time I see itagain, yes, they are men from our trench. But I am suspicious untilI recognize our helmets. Then I call. And immediately an answerrings out, my name: "Paul--Paul----"
I call again in answer. It is Kat and Albert who have come out witha stretcher to look for me.
"Are you wounded?"
"No, no----"
We drop into the trench. I ask for something to eat and wolf itdown. Müller gives me a cigarette. In a few words I tell whathappened. There is nothing new about it; it happens quite often.The night attack is the only unusual feature of the business. InRussia Kat once lay for two days behind the enemy lines before hecould make his way back.
I do not mention the dead printer.
But by next morning I can keep it to myself no longer. I must tellKat and Albert. They both try to calm me. "You can't do anythingabout it. What else could you have done? That is what you are herefor."
I listen to them and feel comforted, reassured by their presence. Itwas mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in theshell-hole.
"Look there for instance," points Kat.
On the fire-step stand some snipers. They rest their rifles withtelescopic sights on the parapet and watch the enemy front. Once andagain a shot cracks out.
Then we hear the cry: "That's found a billet!" "Did you see how heleapt in the air?" Sergeant Oellrich turns round proudly and scoreshis point. He heads the shooting list for to-day with threeunquestionable hits.
"What do you say to that?" asks Kat.
I nod.
"If he keeps that up he will get a little coloured bird for hisbuttonhole by this evening," says Albert.
"Or rather he will soon be made acting-sergeant-major," says Kat.
We look at one another. "I would not do it," I say.
"All the same," says Kat, "it's very good for you to see it just now."
Sergeant Oellrich returns to the fire-step. The muzzle of his riflesearches to and fro.
"You don't need to lose any more sleep over your affair," nods Albert.
And now I hardly understand it myself any more.
"It was only because I had to lie there with him so long," I say."After all, war is war."
Oellrich's rifle cracks out sharp and dry.
CHAPTER X
We have dropped in for a good job. Eight of us have to guard avillage that has been abandoned because it is being shelled tooheavily.
In particular we have to watch the supply dump as that is not yetempty. We are supposed to provision ourselves from the same store.We are just the right people for that;--Kat, Albert, Müller, Tjaden,Detering, our whole gang is there. Haie is dead, though. But we aremighty lucky all the same, all the other squads have had morecasualties than we have.
We select, as a dug-out, a reinforced concrete cellar into whichsteps lead down from above. The entrance is protected by a separateconcrete wall.
Now we develop an immense industry. This is an opportunity not onlyto stretch one's legs, but to stretch one's soul also. We make thebest use of such opportunities. The war is too desperate to allow usto be sentimental for long. That is only possible so long as thingsare not going too badly. After all, we cannot afford to be anythingbut matter-of-fact. So matter-of-fact, indeed, that I often shudderwhen a thought from the days before the war comes momentarily into myhead. But it does not stay long.
We have to take things as lightly as we can, so we make the most ofevery opportunity, and nonsense stands stark and immediate besidehorror. It cannot be otherwise, that is how we hearten ourselves.So we zealously set to work to create an idyll--an idyll of eatingand sleeping, of course.
The floor is first covered with mattresses which we haul in from thehouses. Even a soldier's behind likes to sit soft. Only in themiddle of the floor is there any clear space. Then we furnishourselves with blankets and eiderdowns, luxurious soft affairs.There is plenty of everything to be had in the town. Albert and Ifind a mahogany bed which can be taken to pieces, with a sky of bluesilk and a lace coverlet. We sweat like monkeys moving it in, but aman cannot let a thing like that slip, and it would certainly be shotto pieces in a day or two.
Kat and I do a little patrolling through the houses. In very shorttime we have collected a dozen eggs and two pounds of fairly freshbutter. Suddenly there is a crash in the drawing room, and an ironstove hurtles through the wall past us and on, a yard from us outthrough the wall behind. Two holes. It comes from the houseopposite where a shell has just landed. "The swine," grimaces Kat,and we continue our search. All at once we prick up our ears, hurryacross, and suddenly stand petrified--there running up and down in alittle sty are two live sucking pigs. We rub our eyes and look onceagain to make certain. Yes, they are still there. We seize hold ofthem--no doubt about it, two real young pigs.
This will make a grand feed. About twenty yards from our dug-outthere is a small house that was used as an officers' billet. In thekitchen is an immense fireplace with two ranges, pots, pans, andkettles--everything, even to a stack of small chopped wood in anouthouse--a regular cook's paradise.
Two of our fellows have been out in the fields all the morninghunting for potatoes, carrots, and green peas. We are quite uppishand sniff at the tinned stuff in the supply dump, we want freshvegetables. In the dining-room there are already two heads ofcauliflower.
The sucking pigs are slaughtered. Kat sees to them. We want to makepotato cakes to go with the roast. But we cannot find a grater forthe potatoes. However, that difficulty is soon got over. With anail we punch a lot of holes in a pot lid and there we have a grater.Three fellows put on thick gloves to protect their fingers againstthe grater, two others peel the potatoes, and the business gets going.
Kat samples the sucking pigs, the carrots, the peas, and thecauliflower. He even mixes a white sauce for the cauliflower. I frythe pancakes, four at a time. After ten minutes I get the knack oftossing the pan so that the pancakes which are done on the one sidesail up, turn in the air and are caught again as they come down. Thesucking pigs are baked whole. We all stand round them as before analtar.
In the meantime we receive visitors, a couple of wireless-men, whoare generously invited to the feed. They sit in the living-roomwhere there is a piano. One of them plays, the other sings 'An derWeser.' He sings feelingly, but with a rather Saxon accent. All thesame it moves us as we stand at the fireplace preparing the goodthings.
Then we begin to realize that we are in for trouble. The observationballoons have spotted the smoke from our chimney, and the shellsstart to drop on us. They are those damned spraying littledaisy-cutters that make only a small hole and scatter widely close tothe ground. They keep dropping closer and closer all round us; stillwe cannot leave the grub in the lurch. A couple of splinters whizzthrough the top of the kitchen window. The roast is already cooked.But frying the pancakes is getting difficult. The explosions come sofast that the splinters strike often and oftener against the wall ofthe house and sweep in through the window. Whenever I hear a shellcoming I drop down on one knee with the pan and the pancakes, andduck behind the wall of the window. Immediately afterwards I am upagain and going on with the frying.
The Saxons stop singing--a fragment has smashed into the piano. Atlast everything is ready and we organize the transport of it back tothe dug-out. After the next explosion two men dash across the fiftyyards to the dug-out with the pots of vegetables. We see themdisappear.
The next shot. Everyone ducks and then two more trot off, each witha big can of finest grade coffee, and reach the dug-out before thenext explosion.
Then Kat and Kropp seize the masterpiece--the big dish with thebrown, roasted sucking pigs. A screech, a knee bend, and away theyrace over the fifty yards of open country.
I stay to finish frying my last four pancakes; twice I have to dropon the floor;--after all, it means four pancakes more, and they aremy favourite dish.
Then I grab the plate with the great pile of cakes and squeeze myselfbehind the house door. A hiss, a crash, and I gallop off with theplate clamped against my chest with both hands. I am almost in, Irun like a deer, sweep round the wall, fragments clatter against theconcrete, I tumble down the cellar steps, my elbows are skinned, butI have not lost a single pancake, nor even broken the plate.
About two o'clock we start the meal. It lasts till six. We drinkcoffee until half-past seven--officers' coffee from the supplydump--and smoke officers' cigars and cigarettes--also from the supplydump. Punctually at half-past seven we begin the evening meal.About ten o'clock we throw the bones of the sucking pigs outside thedoor. Then there is cognac and rum--also from the blessed supplydump--and once again long, fat cigars with belly-bands. Tjadensuggests that it lacks only one thing: Girls from an officers'brothel.
Late in the evening we hear mewing. A little grey cat sits in theentrance. We entice it in and give it something to eat. And thatwakes up our own appetites once more. Still chewing, we lie down tosleep.
But the night is bad. We have eaten too much fat. Fresh baby pig isvery griping to the bowels. There is an everlasting coming and goingin the dug-out. Two, three men with their pants down are alwayssitting about outside and cursing. I have been out nine timesmyself. About four o'clock in the morning we reach a record: alleleven men, guards and visitors, are squatting outside.
Burning houses stand out like torches against the night. Shellslumber across and crash down. Munition columns tear along thestreet. On one side the supply dump has been ripped open. In spiteof all the flying fragments the drivers of the munition columns pourin like a swarm of bees and pounce on the bread. We let them havetheir own way. If we said anything it would only mean a good hidingfor us. So we go differently about it. We explain that we are theguard and so know our way about, we get hold of the tinned stuff andexchange it for things we are short of. What does it matteranyhow--in a while it will all be blown to pieces. For ourselves wetake some chocolate from the depot and eat it in slabs. Kat says itis good for loose bowels.
Almost a fortnight passes thus in eating, drinking, and roamingabout. No one disturbs us. The town gradually vanishes under theshells and we lead a charmed life. So long as any part of the supplydump still stands we don't worry, we desire nothing better than tostay here till the end of the war.
Tjaden has become so fastidious that he only half smokes his cigars.With his nose in the air he explains to us that he was brought upthat way. And Kat is most cheerful. In the morning his first callis: "Emil, bring in the caviare and coffee." We put on extraordinaryairs, every man treats the other as his valet, bounces him and giveshim orders. "There is something itching under my foot; Kropp, myman, catch that louse at once," says Leer, poking out his leg at himlike a ballet girl, and Albert drags him up the stairs by the foot."Tjaden!"--"What?"--"Stand at ease, Tjaden; and what's more, don'tsay 'What,' say 'Yes, Sir,'--now: Tjaden!" Tjaden retorts in thewell-known phrase from Goethe's "Götz von Berlichingen," with whichhe is always very free.
After eight more days we receive orders to go back. The palmy daysare over. Two big motor lorries take us away. They are stacked highwith planks. Nevertheless, Albert and I erect on top our four-posterbed complete with blue silk canopy, mattress, and two lace coverlets.And behind it at the head is stowed a bag full of choice edibles. Weoften dip into it, and the tough ham sausages, the tins of liversausages, the conserves, the boxes of cigarettes rejoice our hearts.Each man has a bag to himself.
Kropp and I have rescued two big red armchairs as well. They standinside the bed, and we sprawl back in them as in a theatre box.Above us swells the silken cover like a baldaquin. Each man has along cigar in his mouth. And thus from aloft we survey the scene.
Between us stands a parrot-cage that we found for the cat. She iscoming with us, and lies in the cage before her saucer of meat, andpurrs.
Slowly the lorries roll down the road. We sing. Behind us theshells are sending up fountains from the now utterly abandoned town.
A few days later we are sent out to evacuate a village. On the waywe meet the fleeing inhabitants trundling their goods and chattelsalong with them in wheel-barrows, perambulators, and on their backs.Their figures are bent, their faces full of grief, despair, haste,and resignation. The children hold on to their mothers' hands, andoften an older girl leads the little ones who stumble onward and arefor ever looking back. A few carry miserable-looking dolls. All aresilent as they pass us by.
We are marching in column; the French do not fire on a town in whichthere are still inhabitants. But a few minutes later the airscreams, the earth heaves, cries ring out; a shell has landed amongthe rear squad. We scatter and fling ourselves down on the ground,but at that moment I feel the instinctive alertness leave me whichhitherto has always made me do unconsciously the right thing underfire; the thought leaps up with a terrible, throttling fear: "You arelost"--and the next moment a blow sweeps like a whip over my leftleg. I hear Albert cry out; he is beside me.
"Quick, up, Albert!" I yell, for we are lying unsheltered in the openfield.
He staggers up and runs. I keep beside him. We have to get over ahedge; it is higher than we are. Kropp seizes a branch, I heave himup by the leg, he cries out, I give him a swing and he flies over.With one leap I follow him and fall into a ditch that lies behind thehedge.
Our faces are smothered with duck-weed and mud, but the cover isgood. So we wade in up to our necks. Whenever a shell whistles weduck our heads under the water. After we have done this a dozentimes, I am exhausted.
"Let's get away, or I'll fall in and drown," groans Albert.
"Where has it got you?" I ask him.
"In the knee, I think."
"Can you run?"
"I think----"
"Then out!"
We make for the ditch beside the road, and stooping, run along it.The shelling follows us. The road leads toward the munition dump.If that goes up there won't be a man of us with his head left on hisshoulders. So we change our plan and run diagonally across country.
Albert begins to drag. "You go, I'll come on after," he says, andthrows himself down.
I seize him by the arm and shake him. "Up, Albert, if once you liedown you'll never get any farther. Quick, I'll hold you up."
At last we reach a small dug-out. Kropp pitches in and I bandage himup. The shot is just a little above his knee. Then I take a look atmyself. My trousers are bloody and my arm, too. Albert binds up mywounds with his field dressing. Already he is no longer able to movehis leg, and we both wonder how we managed to get this far. Fearalone made it possible; we would have run even if our feet had beenshot off;--we would have run on the stumps.
I can still crawl a little. I call out to a passing ambulance wagonwhich picks us up. It is full of wounded. There is an army medicallance-corporal with it who sticks an anti-tetanus needle into ourchests.
At the dressing station we arrange matters so that we lie side byside. They give us a thin soup which we spoon down greedily andscornfully, because we are accustomed to better times but are hungryall the same.
"Now for home, Albert," I say.
"Let's hope so," he replies, "I only wish I knew what I've got."
The pain increases. The bandages burn like fire. We drink anddrink, one glass of water after another.
"How far above the knee am I hit?" asks Kropp.
"At least four inches, Albert," I answer. Actually it is perhaps one.
"I've made up my mind," he says after a while, "if they take off myleg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple."
So we lie there with our thoughts and wait.
In the evening we are hauled on to the chopping-block. I amfrightened and think quickly what I ought to do; for everyone knowsthat the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightestprovocation. Under the great pressure of business that is muchsimpler than complicated patching. I think of Kemmerich. Whateverhappens I will not let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack acouple of their skulls.
It is all right. The surgeon pokes around in the wound and ablackness comes before my eyes. "Don't carry on so," he saysgruffly, and hacks away. The instruments gleam in the bright lightlike malevolent animals. The pain is insufferable. Two orderlieshold my arms fast, but I break loose with one of them and try tocrash into the surgeon's spectacles just as he notices and springsback. "Chloroform the scoundrel," he roars madly.
Then I become quiet. "Pardon me, Herr Doctor, I will keep still, butdo not chloroform me."
"Well now," he cackles and takes up his instrument again. He is afair fellow, not more than thirty years old, with scars anddisgusting gold spectacles. Now I see that he is tormenting me, heis merely raking about in the wound and looking up surreptitiously atme over his glasses. My hands squeeze around the grips, I'll kickthe bucket before he will get a squeak out of me.
He has fished out a piece of shell and tosses it to me. Apparentlyhe is pleased at my self-control, for he seems to be more considerateof me now and says: "To-morrow you'll be off home." Then I am put inplaster. When I am back again with Kropp I tell him that apparentlya hospital train comes in to-morrow morning.
"We must work the army medical sergeant-major so that we can keeptogether, Albert."
I manage to slip the sergeant-major two of my cigars withbelly-bands, and then tip the word to him. He smells the cigars andsays: "Have you got any more of them?"
"Another good handful," I say, "and my comrade," I point to Kropp,"he has some as well. We might possibly be glad to hand them to youout of the window of the hospital train in the morning."
He understands, of course, smells them once again and says: "Done."
We cannot get a minute's sleep all night. Seven fellows die in ourward. One of them sings hymns in a high cracked tenor before hebegins to gurgle. Another has crept out of his bed to the window.He lies in front of it as though he wants to look out for the lasttime.
Our stretchers stand on the platform. We wait for the train. Itrains and the station has no roof. Our covers are thin. We havewaited already two hours.
The sergeant-major looks after us like a mother. Although I feelpretty bad I do not let our scheme out of my mind. Occasionally Ilet him see the packet and give him one cigar in advance. Inexchange the sergeant-major covers us over with a water-proof sheet.
"Albert, old man," I suddenly bethink myself, "our four poster andthe cat----"
"And the club chairs," he adds.
Yes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening we used to sitin them like lords, and intended later on to let them out by thehour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regularbusiness, a real good living.
"And our bags of grub, too, Albert."
We grow melancholy. We might have made some use of the things. Ifonly the train left one day later Kat would be sure to find us andbring us the stuff.
What damned hard luck! In our bellies there is gruel, mean hospitalstuff, and in our bags roast pork. But we are so weak that we cannotwork up any more excitement about it.
The stretchers are sopping wet by the time the train arrives in themorning. The sergeant-major sees to it that we are put in the samecar. There is a crowd of red-cross nurses. Kropp is stowed inbelow. I am lifted up and put into the bed above him.
"Good God!" I exclaim suddenly.
"What is it?" asks the sister.
I cast a glance at the bed. It is covered with clean snow-whitelinen, that even has the marks of the iron still on it. And my shirthas gone six weeks without being washed and is terribly muddy.
"Can't you get in by yourself?" asks the sister gently.
"Why yes," I say in a sweat, "but take off the bed cover first."
"What for?"
I feel like a pig. Must I get in there?--"It will get----" Ihesitate.
"A little bit dirty?" she suggests helpfully. "That doesn't matter,we will wash it again afterwards."
"No, no, not that----" I say excitedly. I am not equal to suchoverwhelming refinement.
"When you have been lying out there in the trenches, surely we canwash a sheet," she goes on.
I look at her, she is young and crisp, spotless and neat, likeeverything here; a man cannot realize that it isn't for officersonly, and feels himself strange and in some way even alarmed.
All the same, the woman is a tormentor, she is going to force me tosay it. "It is only----" I try again, surely she must know what Imean.
"What is it then?"
"Because of the lice," I bawl out at last.
She laughs. "Well, they must have a good day for once, too."
Now I don't care any more. I scramble into bed and pull up thecovers.
A hand gropes over the bed-cover. The sergeant-major. He goes offwith the cigars.
An hour later we notice that we are moving.
At night I cannot sleep. Kropp is restless too. The train rideseasily over the rails. I cannot realize it all yet; a bed, a train,home. "Albert!" I whisper.
"Yes----"
"Do you know where the latrine is?"
"Over to the right of the door, I think."
"I'm going to have a look." It is dark, I grope for the edge of thebed and cautiously try to slide down. But my foot finds no support,I begin to slip, the plaster leg is no help, and with a crash I lieon the floor.
"Damn!" I say.
"Have you bumped yourself?" asks Kropp.
"You could hear that well enough for yourself," I growl, "my head----"
A door opens in the rear of the car. The sister comes with a lightand looks at me.
"He has fallen out of bed----"
She feels my pulse and smooths my forehead. "You haven't any fever,though."
"No." I agree.
"Have you been dreaming then?" she asks.
"Perhaps----" I evade. The interrogation starts again. She looks atme with her clear eyes, and the more wonderful and sweet she is theless am I able to tell her what I want.
I am lifted up into bed again. That will be all right. As soon asshe goes I must try to climb down again. If she were an old woman,it might be easier to say what a man wants, but she is so very young,at the most twenty-five, it can't be done, I cannot possibly tell her.
Then Albert comes to my rescue, he is not bashful, it makes nodifference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turnsround. "Sister, he wants----" but no more does Albert know how toexpress it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a singleword, but here, to such a lady---- All at once he remembers hisschool days and finishes hastily: "He wants to leave the room,sister."
"Ah!" says the sister, "but he shouldn't climb out of his bed withhis plaster bandage. What do you want then?" she says, turning to me.
I am in mortal terror at this new turn, for I haven't any idea whatthe things are called professionally. She comes to my help.
"Little or big?"
This shocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: "Well,only quite a little one----"
At any rate, it produces the effect.
I get a bottle. After a few hours I am no longer the only one, andby morning we are quite accustomed to it and ask for what we wantwithout any false modesty.
The train travels slowly. Sometimes it halts and the dead areunloaded. It halts often.
Albert is feverish. I feel miserable and have a good deal of pain,but the worst of it is that apparently there are still lice under theplaster bandage. They itch terribly, and I cannot scratch myself.
We sleep through the days. The country glides quietly past thewindow. The third night we reach Herbstal. I hear from the sisterthat Albert is to be put off at the next station because of hisfever. "How far does the train go?" I ask.
"To Cologne."
"Albert," I say, "we stick together; you see."
On the sister's next round I hold my breath and press it up into myhead. My face swells and turns red. She stops. "Are you in pain?""Yes," I groan, "all of a sudden."
She gives me a thermometer and goes on. I would not have been underKat's tuition if I did not know what to do now. These armythermometers are not made for old soldiers. All one has to do is todrive the quicksilver up and then it stays there without fallingagain.
I stick the thermometer under my arm at a slant, and flip it steadilywith my forefinger. Then I give it a shake. I send it up to 100.2°.But that is not enough. A match held cautiously near to it brings itup to 101.6°.
As the sister comes back, I blow myself out, breathe in short gasps,goggle at her with vacant eyes, toss about restlessly, and mutter ina whisper: "I can't bear it any longer----"
She notes me down on a slip of paper. I know perfectly well myplaster bandage will not be re-opened if it can be avoided. Albertand I are put off together.
We are in the same room in a Catholic Hospital. That is a piece ofluck, the Catholic infirmaries are noted for their good treatment andgood food. The hospital has been filled up from our train, there area great many bad cases amongst them. We do not get examined to-daybecause there are too few surgeons. The flat trolleys with therubber wheels pass continually along the corridor, and always withsomeone stretched at full length upon them. A damnable position,stretched out at full length like that;--the only time it is good iswhen one is asleep.
The night is very disturbed. No one can sleep. Toward morning wedoze a little. I wake up just as it grows light. The door standsopen and I hear voices from the corridor. The others wake up too.One fellow, who has been there a couple of days already explains itto us: "Up here in the corridor every morning the sisters sayprayers. They call it Morning Devotion. And so that you can getyour share, they leave the door open."
No doubt it is well meant, but it gives us aches in our head andbones.
"Such an absurdity!" I say, "just when a man dropped off to sleep."
"All the light cases are up here, that's why they do it here," hereplies.
Albert groans. I get furious and call out: "Be quiet out there!"
A minute later a sister appears. In her black and white dress shelooks like a beautiful tea-cosy. "Shut the door, will you, sister?"says someone.
"We are saying prayers, that is why the door is open," she responds.
"But we want to go on sleeping----"
"Prayer is better than sleep," she stands there and smilesinnocently. "And it is seven o'clock already."
Albert groans again. "Shut the door," I snort.
She is quite disconcerted. Apparently she cannot understand. "Butwe are saying prayers for you too."
"Shut the door, anyway."
She disappears leaving the door open. The intoning of the Litanyproceeds.
I feel savage, and say: "I'm going to count up to three. If itdoesn't stop before then I'll let something fly."
"Me, too," says another.
I count up to five. Then I take hold of a bottle, aim, and heave itthrough the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousandpieces. The praying stops. A swarm of sisters appear and reproachus in concert.
"Shut the door!" we yell.
They withdraw. The little one who came first is the last to go."Heathen," she chirps, but shuts the door all the same. We have won.
At noon the hospital inspector arrives and abuses us. He threatensus with clink and all the rest of it. But a hospital inspector isjust the same as a commissariat inspector, or any one else who wearsa long dagger and shoulder straps, but is really a clerk, and isnever considered even by a recruit as a real officer. So we let himtalk. What can they do to us, anyway----
"Who threw the bottle?" he asks.
Before I can think whether I should report myself, someone says: "Idid."
A man with a bristling beard sits up. Everyone is excited; whyshould he report himself?
"You?"
"Yes. I was annoyed because we were waked up unnecessarily and lostmy senses so that I did not know what I was doing."
He talks like a book.
"What is your name?"
"Reinforcement-Reservist Josef Hamacher."
The inspector departs.
We are all curious. "But why did you say you did it? It wasn't youat all!"
He grins. "That doesn't matter. I have a shooting licence."
Then, of course, we all understand. Whoever has a shooting licencecan do just whatever he pleases.
"Yes," he explains, "I got a crack in the head and they presented mewith a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible formy actions. Ever since then I've had a grand time. No one dares toannoy me. And nobody does anything to me."
"I reported myself because the shot amused me. If they open the dooragain to-morrow we will pitch another."
We are overjoyed. With Josef Hamacher in our midst we can now riskanything.
Then come the soundless, flat trollies to take us away.
The bandages are stuck fast. We bellow like steers.
There are eight men in our room. Peter, a curly black-haired fellow,has the worst injury;--a severe lung wound. Franz Wächter, alongsidehim, has a shot in the arm which didn't look too bad at first. Butthe third night he calls out to us, telling us to ring, he thinks hehas a hæmorrhage.
I ring loudly. The night sister does not come. We have been makingrather heavy demands on her during the night, because we have allbeen freshly bandaged, and so have a good deal of pain. One wantshis leg placed so, another so, a third wants water, a fourth wantsher to shake up his pillow;--in the end the buxom old body grumbledbad temperedly and slammed the doors. Now no doubt she thinks it issomething of the same sort and so she is not coming.
We wait. Then Franz says: "Ring again."
I do so. Still she does not put in an appearance. In our wing thereis only one night sister, perhaps she has something to do in one ofthe other rooms. "Franz, are you quite sure you are bleeding?" Iask. "Otherwise we shall be getting cursed again."
"The bandage is wet. Can't anybody make a light?"
That cannot be done either. The switch is by the door and none of uscan stand up. I hold my thumb against the button of the bell till itbecomes numb. Perhaps the sister has fallen asleep. They certainlyhave a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day. Andadded to that is the everlasting praying.
"Should we smash a bottle?" asks Josef Hamacher of the shootinglicence.
"She wouldn't hear that any more than the bell."
At last the door opens. The old lady appears, mumbling. When sheperceives Franz's trouble she begins to bustle, and says: "Why didnot someone say I was wanted?"
"We did ring. And none of us here can walk."
He has been bleeding badly and she binds him up. In the morning welook at his face, it has become sharp and yellow, whereas the eveningbefore he looked almost healthy. Now a sister comes oftener.
Sometimes there are red-cross voluntary aid sisters. They arepleasant, but often rather unskilled. They frequently give us painwhen re-making our beds, and then are so frightened that they hurt usstill more.
The nuns are more reliable. They know how they must take hold of us,but we would be more pleased if they were somewhat more cheerful. Afew of them have real spirit, they are superb. There is no one whowould not do anything for Sister Libertine, this marvellous sister,who spreads good cheer through the whole wing even when she can onlybe seen in the distance. And there are others like her. We would gothrough fire for her. A man cannot really complain, here he istreated by the nuns exactly like a civilian. On the other hand, justto think of a garrison hospital gives a man the creeps.
Franz Wachter does not regain his strength. One day he is taken awayand does not come back. Josef Hamacher knows all about it: "Weshan't see him again. They have put him in the dead room."
"What do you mean, Dead Room?" asks Kropp.
"Well, Dying Room----"
"What is that, then?"
"A little room at the corner of the building. Whoever is about tokick the bucket is put in there. There are two beds in it. It isgenerally called the Dying Room."
"But what do they do that for?"
"They don't have so much work to do afterwards. It is moreconvenient, too, because it lies right beside the lift to themortuary. Perhaps also they do it for the sake of the others, sothat no one in the ward dies in sympathy. And they can look afterhim better, too, if he is by himself."
"But what about him?"
Josef shrugs his shoulders. "Usually he doesn't take much notice anymore."
"Does everybody know about it then?"
"Anyone who has been here long enough knows, of course."
In the afternoon Franz Wachter's bed has a fresh occupant. A coupleof days later they take the new man away, too. Josef makes asignificant gesture. We see many come and go.
Often relatives sit by the beds and weep or talk softly andawkwardly. One old woman will not go away, but she cannot stay therethe whole night through. Another morning she comes very early, butnot early enough; for as she goes up to the bed, someone else is init already. She has to go to the mortuary. The apples that she hasbrought with her she gives to us.
And then little Peter begins to get worse. His temperature chartlooks bad, and one day the flat trolley stands beside his bed."Where to?" he asks.
"To the bandaging ward."
He is lifted out. But the sister makes the mistake of removing histunic from the hook and putting it on the trolley too, so that sheshould not have to make two journeys. Peter understands immediatelyand tries to roll off the trolley. "I'm stopping here!"
They push him back. He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: "Iwon't go to the Dying Room."
"But we are going to the bandaging ward."
"Then what do you want my tunic for?" He can speak no more. Hoarse,agitated, he whispers: "Stopping here!"
They do not answer but wheel him out. At the door he tries to raisehimself up. His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears."I will come back again! I will come back again!" he cries.
The door shuts. We are all excited; but we say nothing. At lastJosef says: "Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, henever comes through."
I am operated on and vomit for two days. My bones will not growtogether, so the surgeon's secretary says. Another fellow's havegrown crooked; his are broken again. It is disgusting.
Among our new arrivals there are two young soldiers with flat feet.The chief surgeon discovers them on his rounds, and is overjoyed."We'll soon put that right," he tells them, "we will just do a smalloperation, and then you will have perfectly sound feet. Enter themdown, sister."
As soon as he is gone, Josef, who knows everything, warns them:"Don't you let him operate on you! That is a special scientificstunt of the old boy's. He goes absolutely crazy whenever he can gethold of anyone to do it on. He operates on you for flat feet, andthere's no mistake, you don't have them any more; you have club feetinstead, and have to walk all the rest of your life on sticks."
"What should a man do, then?" asks one of them.
"Say No. You are here to be cured of your wound, not your flat feet.Did you have any trouble with them in the field? No, well, there youare! At present you can still walk, but if once the old boy gets youunder the knife you'll be cripples. What he wants is little dogs toexperiment with, so the war is a glorious time for him, as it is forall the surgeons. You take a look down below at the staff; there area dozen fellows hobbling around that he has operated on. A lot ofthem have been here all the time since 'fourteen and 'fifteen. Not asingle one of them can walk better than he could before, almost allof them worse, and most only with plaster legs. Every six months hecatches them again and breaks their bones afresh, and every time isgoing to be the successful one. You take my word, he won't dare todo it if you say No."
"Ach, man," says one of the two unfortunates, "better your feet thanyour brain-box. There's no telling what you'll get if you go backout there again? They can do with me just as they please, so long asI get back home. Better to have a club foot than be dead."
The other, a young fellow like ourselves, won't have it done. Onemorning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws atthem so long, that in the end they consent. What else could theydo?--They are mere privates, and he is a big bug. They are broughtback chloroformed and plastered.
It is going badly with Albert. They have taken him and amputated hisleg. The whole leg has been taken off from the thigh. Now he hardlyspeaks any more. Once he says he will shoot himself the first timehe can get hold of his revolver again.
A new convoy arrives. Our room gets two blind men. One of them is avery youthful musician. The sisters never have a knife with themwhen they feed him; he has already snatched one from a sister. Butin spite of this caution there is an incident. In the evening, whilehe is being fed, the sister is called away, and leaves the plate withthe fork on his table. He gropes for the fork, seizes it and drivesit with all his force against his heart, then he snatches up a shoeand strikes with it against the handle as hard as he can. We callfor help and three men are necessary to take the fork away from him.The blunt prongs had already penetrated deep. He abuses us all nightso that no one can go to sleep. In the morning he has lock-jaw.
Again beds become empty. Day after day goes by with pain and fear,groans and death-gurgles. Even the Death Room is no use any more, itis too small; fellows die during the night in our room. They go evenfaster than the sisters can cope with them.
But one day the door flies open, the flat trolley rolls in, and thereon the stretcher, pale, thin, upright and triumphant, with his shaggyhead of curls sits Peter. Sister Libertine with beaming looks pusheshim over to his former bed. He is back from the Dying Room. We havelong supposed him dead.
He looks round: "What do you say now?"
And even Josef has to admit that it is the first time he has everknown of such a thing.
Gradually a few of us venture to stand up. And I am given crutchesto hobble around on. But I do not make much use of them; I cannotbear Albert's gaze as I move about the room. His eyes always followme with such a strange look. So I sometimes escape to thecorridor;--there I can move about more freely.
On the next floor below are the abdominal and spine cases, headwounds and double amputations. On the right side of the wing are thejaw wounds, gas cases, nose, ear, and neck wounds. On the left theblind and the lung wounds, pelvis wounds, wounds in the joints,wounds in the testicles, wounds in the intestines. Here a manrealizes for the first time in how many places a man can get hit.
Two fellows die of tetanus. Their skin turns pale, their limbsstiffen, at last only their eyes live--stubbornly. Many of thewounded have their shattered limbs hanging free in the air from agallows; underneath the wound a basin is placed into which the pusdrips. Every two or three hours the vessel is emptied. Other menlie in stretching bandages with heavy weights hanging from the end ofthe bed. I see intestine wounds that are constantly full of excreta.The surgeon's clerk shows me X-ray photographs of completely smashedhip-bones, knees, and shoulders.
A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are stillhuman faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only onehospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands inGermany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands inRussia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done,or thought, when such things are possible. It must all be lies andof no account when the culture of a thousand years could not preventthis stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers intheir hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life butdespair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyssof sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and insilence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay oneanother. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weaponsand words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men ofmy age, here and over there, throughout the whole world, see thesethings; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. Whatwould our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them andproffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time evercomes when the war is over? Through the years our business has beenkilling;--it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life islimited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall comeout of us?
The oldest man in our room is Lewandowski. He is forty, and hasalready lain ten months in the hospital with a severe abdominalwound. Just in the last few weeks he has improved sufficiently to beable to hobble about doubled up.
For some days past he has been in great excitement. His wife haswritten to him from the little home in Poland where she lives,telling him that she has saved up enough money to pay for the fare,and is coming to see him.
She is already on the way and may arrive any day. Lewandowski haslost his appetite, he even gives away red cabbage and sausage afterhe has had a couple of mouthfuls. He goes round the room perpetuallywith the letter. Everyone has already read it a dozen times, thepost-marks have been examined heaven knows how often, the address ishardly legible any longer for spots of grease and thumb-marks, and inthe end what is sure to happen, happens: Lewandowski develops afever, and has to go back to bed.
He has not seen his wife for two years. In the meantime she hasgiven birth to a child, whom she is bringing with her. But somethingelse occupies Lewandowski's thoughts. He had hoped to get permissionto go out when his old woman came; for obviously seeing is all verywell, but when a man gets his wife again after such a long time, ifat all possible, a man wants something else besides.
Lewandowski has discussed it all with us at great length; in the armythere are no secrets about such things. And what's more, nobodyfinds anything objectionable in it. Those of us who are already ableto go out have told him of a couple of very good spots in the town,parks and squares, where he would not be disturbed; one of us evenknows of a little room.
But what is the use, there Lewandowski lies in bed with his troubles.Life holds no more joy for him if he has to forego this affair. Weconsole him and promise to get over the difficulty somehow or other.
One afternoon his wife appears, a tousled little thing with anxious,quick eyes like a bird, in a sort of black, crinkly mantilla withribbons; heaven knows where she inherited the thing.
She murmurs something softly and stands shyly in the doorway. Itterrifies her that there are six of us men present.
"Well, Marja," says Lewandowski, and gulps dangerously with hisAdam's apple, "you can come in all right, they won't hurt you."
She goes the round and proffers each of us her hand. Then sheproduces the child, which in the interval has done something in itsnapkin. From a large handbag embroidered with pearls she takes out aclean one and makes the child fresh and presentable. This dispelsher first embarrassment, and the two begin to talk.
Lewandowski is very fidgety, every now and then he squints across atus most unhappily with his round goggle eyes.
The time is favourable, the doctor's visit is over, at the most therecouldn't be more than one sister left in the ward. So one of us goesout to prospect. He comes back and nods.
"Not a soul to be seen. Now's your chance, Johann, set to."
The two speak together in an undertone. The woman turns a little redand looks embarrassed. We grin good-naturedly and make pooh-poohinggestures, what does it matter! The devil take all the conventions,they were made for other times; here lies the carpenter JohannLewandowski, a soldier shot to a cripple, and there is his wife; whoknows when he will see her again? He wants to have her, and heshould have her, good.
Two men stand at the door to forestall the sisters and keep themoccupied if they chance to come along. They agree to stand guard fora quarter of an hour or thereabouts.
Lewandowski can only lie on his side, so one of us props a couple ofpillows against his back. Albert gets the child to hold, we all turnround a bit, the black mantilla disappears under the bed-clothes, wemake a great clatter and play skat noisily.
All goes well. I hold a club solo with four jacks which nearly goesthe round. In the process we almost forget Lewandowski. After awhile the child begins to squall, although Albert, in desperation,rocks it to and fro. Then there is a bit of creaking and rustling,and as we look up casually we see that the child has the bottle inits mouth, and is back again with its mother. The business is over.
We now feel ourselves like one big family, the woman is ratherquieter, and Lewandowski lies there sweating and beaming.
He unpacks the embroidered handbag, and a couple of good sausagescomes to light; Lewandowski takes up the knife with a flourish andsaws the meat into slices.
With a handsome gesture he waves toward us--and the little woman goesfrom one to the other and smiles at us and hands round the sausage;she now looks quite handsome. We call her Mother, she is pleased andshakes up our pillows for us.
After a few weeks I have to go each morning to the massagedepartment. There my leg is harnessed up and made to move. The armhas healed long since.
New convoys arrive from the line. The bandages are no longer made ofcloth, but of white crêpe paper. Rag bandages have become scarce atthe front.
Albert's stump heals well. The wound is almost closed. In a fewweeks he should go off to an institute for artificial limbs. Hecontinues not to talk much, and is much more solemn than formerly.He often breaks off in his speech and stares in front of him. If hewere not here with us he would have shot himself long ago. But nowhe is over the worst of it, and he often looks on while we play skat.
I get convalescent leave.
My mother does not want to let me go away. She is so feeble. It isall much worse than it was last time.
Then I am sent on from the base and return once more to the line.
Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man getsused to that sort of thing in the army.
CHAPTER XI
We count the weeks no more. It was winter when I came up, and whenthe shells exploded the frozen clods of earth were just as dangerousas the fragments. Now the trees are green again. Our lifealternates between billets and the front. We have almost grownaccustomed to it; war is a cause of death like cancer andtuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merelymore frequent, more varied and terrible.
Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of thedays;--when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead.Fields of craters within and without.
Everyone is so, not only ourselves here--the things that existedbefore are no longer valid, and one practically knows them no more.Distinctions, breeding, education are changed, are almost blotted outand hardly recognizable any longer. Sometimes they give an advantagefor profiting by a situation;--but they also bring consequences alongwith them, in that they arouse prejudices which have to be overcome.It is as though formerly we were coins of different provinces; andnow we are melted down, and all bear the same stamp. To re-discoverthe old distinctions, the metal itself must be tested. First we aresoldiers and afterwards, in a strange and shamefaced fashion,individual men as well.
It is a great brotherhood, which to a condition of life arising outof the midst of danger, out of the tension and forlornness of death,adds something of the good-fellowship of the folk-song, of thefeeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty toone another of men condemned to death--seeking in a wholly unpatheticway a fleeting enjoyment of the hours as they come. If one wants toappraise it, it is at once heroic and banal--but who wants to do that?
It is this, for example, that makes Tjaden spoon down his ham-and-peasoup in such tearing haste when an enemy attack is reported, simplybecause he cannot be sure that in an hour's time he will still bealive. We have discussed at length, whether it is right or not to doso. Kat condemns it, because, he says, a man has to reckon with thepossibility of an abdominal wound, and that is more dangerous on afull stomach than on an empty one.
Such things are real problems, they are serious matters to us, theycannot be otherwise. Here, on the borders of death, life follows anamazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, allelse lies buried in gloomy sleep;--in that lies our primitiveness andour survival. Were we more subtly differentiated we must long sincehave gone mad, have deserted, or have fallen. As in a polarexpedition, every expression of life must serve only the preservationof existence, and is absolutely focussed on that. All else isbanished because it would consume energies unnecessarily. That isthe only way to save ourselves. In the quiet hours when the puzzlingreflection of former days, like a blurred mirror, projects beyond methe figure of my present existence, I often sit over against myself,as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principlethat calls itself Life has adapted itself even to this form. Allother expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continualwatch against the menace of death;--it has transformed us intounthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct--it hasreinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces beforethe horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, consciousthought--it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that weescape the abyss of solitude--it has lent us the indifference of wildcreatures, so that in spite of all we perceive the positive in everymoment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught ofnothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmostsuperficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark. Butthen unexpectedly a flame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up.
Those are the dangerous moments. They show us that the adjustment isonly artificial, that it is not simple rest, but sharpest strugglefor rest. In the outward form of our life we are hardlydistinguishable from Bushmen; but whereas the latter can be soalways, because they are so truly, and at best may develop further byexertion of their spiritual forces, with us it is the reverse;--ourinner forces are not exerted toward regeneration, but towarddegeneration. The Bushmen are primitive and naturally so, but we areprimitive in an artificial sense, and by virtue of the utmost effort.
And at night, waking out of a dream, overwhelmed and bewitched by thecrowding faces, a man perceives with alarm how slight is the support,how thin the boundary that divides him from the darkness. We arelittle flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm ofdissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost goout. Then the muffled roar of the battle becomes a ring thatencircles us, we creep in upon ourselves, and with big eyes stareinto the night. Our only comfort is the steady breathing of ourcomrades asleep, and thus we wait for the morning.
Every day and every hour every shell and every death cuts into thisthin support, and the years waste it rapidly. I see how it isalready gradually breaking down around me.
There is the mad story of Detering.
He was one of those who kept himself to himself. His misfortune wasthat he saw a cherry tree in a garden. We were just coming back fromthe front line, and at a turning of the road near our new billets,marvellous in the morning twilight, stood this cherry tree before us.It had no leaves, but was one white mass of blossom.
In the evening Detering was not to be seen. Then at last he cameback and had a couple of branches of cherry blossom in his hand. Wemade fun of him, and asked whether he was going to a wedding. Hemade no answer, but laid them on his bed. During the night I heardhim making a noise, he seemed to be packing. I sensed somethingamiss and went over to him. He made out it was nothing, and I saidto him: "Don't do anything silly, Detering."
"Ach, why--it's merely that I can't sleep----"
"What did you pick the cherry branches for?"
"I might have been going to get some more cherry branches," hereplied, evasively--and after a while: "I have a big orchard withcherry trees at home. When they are in blossom, from the hay loftthey look like one single sheet, so white. It is just the time."
"Perhaps you will get leave soon. You may even be sent back as afarmer."
He nodded, but he was far away. When these peasants are excited theyhave a curious expression, a mixture of cow and yearning god, halfstupid and half rapt. In order to turn him away from his thoughts Iasked him for a piece of bread. He gave it to me without a murmur.That was suspicious, for he is usually tight-fisted. So I stayedawake. Nothing happened; in the morning he was as usual.
Apparently he had noticed that I had been watching him;--but thesecond morning after he was gone. I noticed it, but said nothing, inorder to give him time; he might perhaps get through. Variousfellows have already got into Holland.
But at roll call he was missed. A week after we heard that he hadbeen caught by the field gendarmes, those despicable military police.He had headed toward Germany, that was hopeless, of course--and, ofcourse, he did everything else just as idiotically. Anyone mighthave known that his flight was only home-sickness and a momentaryaberration. But what does a court martial hundreds of miles behindthe front-line know about it? We have heard nothing more of Detering.
But sometimes it broke out in other ways, this danger, these pent-upthings, as from an overheated boiler. It will be enough to tell howBerger met his end.
Our trenches have now for some time been shot to pieces, and we havean elastic line, so that there is practically no longer any propertrench warfare. When attack and counter-attack have waged backwardsand forwards there remains a broken line and a bitter struggle fromcrater to crater. The front line has been penetrated, and everywheresmall groups have established themselves, the fight is carried onfrom clusters of shell-holes.
We are in a crater, the English are coming down obliquely, they areturning our flank and working in behind us. We are surrounded. Itis not easy to surrender, fog and smoke hang over us, no one wouldrecognize that we wanted to give ourselves up, and perhaps we don'twant to, a man doesn't even know himself at such moments. We hearthe explosions of the hand-grenades coming toward us. Ourmachine-gun sweeps over the semicircle in front of us. Thecooling-water evaporates, we hastily pass round the case, every manpisses in it, and thus we again have water, and are able to continuefiring. But behind us the attack crashes ever nearer.
A few minutes and we are lost.
Then, at closest range, a second machine-gun bursts out. It is setup in a crater alongside us; Berger has fetched it, and now thecounter-attack comes over from behind; we are set free and makecontact with the rear.
Afterwards, as we lie in comparatively good cover, one of thefood-carriers reports that a couple of hundred yards distant therelies a wounded messenger-dog.
"Where?" asks Berger.
The other describes the place to him. Berger goes off either tofetch the beast in or to shoot it. Six months ago he would not havecared, he would have been reasonable. We try to prevent him. Then,as he goes off grimly, all we can say is: "You're mad," and let himgo. For these cases of front-line madness become dangerous if one isnot able to fling the man to the ground and hold him fast. AndBerger is six feet and the most powerful man in the company.
He is absolutely mad for he has to pass through the barrage; but thislightning that lowers somewhere above us all has struck him and madehim demented. It affects others so that they begin to rave, to runaway--there was one man who even tried to dig himself into the groundwith hands, feet, and teeth.
It is true, such things are often simulated, but the pretence itselfis a symptom. Berger, who means to finish off the dog, is carriedoff with a wound in the pelvis, and one of the fellows who carry himgets a bullet in the cheek while doing it.
Müller is dead. Someone shot him point blank with a Verey light inthe stomach. He lived for half an hour, quite conscious, and interrible pain.
Before he died he handed over his pocketbook to me, and bequeathed mehis boots--the same that he once inherited from Kemmerich. I wearthem, for they fit me quite well. After me Tjaden will get them, Ihave promised them to him.
We have been able to bury Müller, but he is not likely to remain longundisturbed. Our lines are falling back. There are too many freshEnglish and American regiments over there. There's too much cornedbeef and white wheaten bread. Too many new guns. Too manyaeroplanes.
But we are emaciated and starved. Our food is so bad and mixed upwith so much substitute stuff that it makes us ill. The factoryowners in Germany have grown wealthy;--dysentery dissolves ourbowels. The latrine poles are always densely crowded; the people athome ought to be shown these grey, yellow, miserable, wasted faceshere, these bent figures from whose bodies the colic wrings out theblood, and who with lips trembling and distorted with pain, grin atone another and say: "It is not much sense pulling up one's trousersagain----"
Our artillery is fired out, it has too few shells and the barrels areso worn that they shoot uncertainly, and scatter so widely as even tofall on ourselves. We have too few horses. Our fresh troops areanaemic boys in need of rest, who cannot carry a pack, but merelyknow how to die. By thousands. They understand nothing aboutwarfare, they simply go on and let themselves be shot down. A singleflyer routed two companies of them for a joke, just as they camefresh from the train--before they had ever heard of such a thing ascover.
"Germany ought to be empty soon," says Kat.
We have given up hope that some day an end may come. We never thinkso far. A man can stop a bullet and be killed; he can get wounded,and then the hospital is his next stop. There, if they do notamputate him, he sooner or later falls into the hands of one of thosestaff surgeons who, with the War Service Cross in his button-hole,says to him: "What, one leg a bit short? If you have any pluck youdon't need to run at the front. The man is A1. Dismiss!"
Kat tells a story that has travelled the whole length of the frontfrom the Vosges to Flanders;--of the staff surgeon who reads thenames on the list, and when a man comes before him, without lookingup, says: "A1. We need soldiers up there." A fellow with a woodenleg comes up before him, the staff surgeon again says A1---- "Andthen," Kat raises his voice, "the fellow says to him: 'I already havea wooden leg, but when I go back again and they shoot off my head,then I will get a wooden head made and become a staff surgeon." Thisanswer tickles us all immensely.
There may be good doctors, and there are, lots of them; all the same,every soldier some time during his hundreds of inspections falls intothe clutches of one of these countless hero-grabbers who pridethemselves on changing as many C3's and B3's as possible into A1's.
There are many such stories, they are mostly far more bitter. Allthe same, they have nothing to do with mutiny or lead-swinging. Theyare merely honest and call a thing by its name; for there is a verygreat deal of fraud, injustice, and baseness in the army.--Is itnothing that regiment after regiment returns again and again to theever more hopeless struggle, that attack follows attack along theweakening, retreating, crumbling line?
From a mockery the tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armouredthey come rolling on in long lines, and more than anything elseembody for us the horror of war.
We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of theenemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines,their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they areannihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climbup again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belchingarmour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and thewounded--we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against theircolossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenadesmatches.
Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks--shattering, starvation,death.
Dysentery, influenza, typhus--murder, burning, death.
Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no otherpossibilities.
In one attack our Company Commander, Bertinck, falls. He was one ofthose superb front-line officers who are foremost in every hot place.He was with us for two years without being wounded, so that somethinghad to happen in the end.
We occupy a crater and get surrounded. The stink of petroleum or oilblows across with the fumes of powder. Two fellows with aflame-thrower are seen, one carries the tin on his back, the otherhas the hose in his hands from which the fire spouts. If they get sonear that they can reach us we are done for, we cannot retreat yet.
We open fire on them. But they work nearer and things begin to lookbad. Bertinck is lying in the hole with us. When he sees that wecannot escape because under the sharp fire we must make the most ofthis cover, he takes a rifle, crawls out of the hole, and lying downpropped on his elbows, he takes aim. He fires--the same moment abullet smacks into him, they have got him. Still he lies and aimsagain;--once he shifts and again takes his aim; at last the riflecracks. Bertinck lets the gun drop and says: "Good," and slips backinto the hole. The hindermost of the two flame-throwers is hit, hefalls, the hose slips away from the other fellow, the fire squirtsabout on all sides and the man burns.
Bertinck has a chest wound. After a while a fragment smashes awayhis chin, and the same fragment has sufficient force to tear openLeer's hip. Leer groans as he supports himself on his arm, he bleedsquickly, no one can help him. Like an emptying tube, after a coupleof minutes he collapses.
What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician atschool.
The months pass by. The summer of 1918 is the most bloody and themost terrible. The days stand like angels in gold and blue,incomprehensible, above the ring of annihilation. Every man hereknows that we are losing the war. Not much is said about it, we arefalling back, we will not be able to attack again after this bigoffensive, we have no more men and no more ammunition.
Still the campaign goes on--the dying goes on----
Summer of 1918--Never has life in its nig-gardliness seemed to us sodesirable as now;--the red poppies in the meadows round our billets,the smooth beetles on the blades of grass, the warm evenings in thecool, dim rooms, the black, mysterious trees of the twilight, thestars and the flowing waters, dreams and long sleep----. O Life,life, life!
Summer of 1918--Never was so much silently suffered as in the momentwhen we depart once again for the front-line. Wild, tormentingrumours of an armistice and peace are in the air, they lay hold onour hearts and make the return to the front harder than ever.
Summer of 1918--Never was life in the line more bitter and more fullof horror than in the hours of the bombardment, when the blanchedfaces lie in the dirt, and the hands clutch at the one thought: No!No! Not now! Not now at the last moment!
Summer of 1918--Breath of hope that sweeps over the scorched fields,raging fever of impatience, of disappointment, of the most agonizingterror of death, insensate question: Why? Why do they not make anend? And why do these rumours of an end fly about?
There are so many airmen here, and they are so sure of themselvesthat they give chase to single individuals, just as though they werehares. For every one German plane there come at least five Englishand American. For one hungry, wretched German soldier come five ofthe enemy, fresh and fit. For one German army loaf there are fiftytins of canned beef over there. We are not beaten, for as soldierswe are better and more experienced; we are simply crushed and drivenback by overwhelmingly superior forces.
Behind us lie rainy weeks--grey sky, grey fluid earth, grey dying.If we go out, the rain at once soaks through our overcoat andclothing;--and we remain wet all the time we are in the line. Wenever get dry. Those who still wear high boots tie sand bags roundthe top so that the mud does not pour in so fast. The rifles arecaked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, theearth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie the yellow poolswith red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded,and survivors slowly sink down.
The storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hailof splinters whips forth the childlike cries of the wounded, and inthe night shattered life groans wearily to the silence.
Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. Wedo not know whether we still live.
Then the heat sinks heavily into our shell holes like a jelly fish,moist and oppressive, and on one of these late summer days, whilebringing food, Kat falls. We two are alone. I bind up his wound;his shin seems to be smashed. It has got the bone, and Kat groansdesperately: "At last--just at the last----"
I comfort him. "Who knows how long the mess will go on yet! Now youare saved----"
The wound begins to bleed fast. Kat cannot be left by himself whileI try to find a stretcher. Anyway, I don't know of astretcher-bearer's post in the neighbourhood.
Kat is not very heavy; so I take him up on my back and start off tothe dressing station with him.
Twice we rest. He suffers acutely on the way. We do not speak much.I have opened the collar of my tunic and breathe heavily, I sweat andmy face is swollen with the strain of carrying. All the same I urgehim to let us go on, for the place is dangerous.
"Shall we go on again, Kat?"
"Must, Paul."
"Then come."
I raise him up, he stands on the uninjured leg and supports himselfagainst a tree. I take up the wounded leg carefully, then he gives ajump and I take the knee of the sound leg also under my arm.
The going is more difficult. Often a shell whistles across. I go asquickly as I can, for the blood from Kat's wound drips to the ground.We cannot shelter ourselves properly from the explosions; before wecan take cover the danger is all over.
We lie down in a small shell hole to rest. I give Kat some tea frommy water bottle. We smoke a cigarette. "Well, Kat," I say gloomily,"We are going to be separated at last."
He is silent and looks at me.
"Do you remember, Kat, how we commandeered the goose? And how youbrought me out of the barrage when I was still a young recruit andwas wounded for the first time? I cried then. Kat, that is almostthree years ago."
He nods.
The anguish of solitude rises up in me. When Kat is taken away Iwill not have one friend left.
"Kat, in any case we must see one another again, if it is peace timebefore you come back."
"Do you think that I will be marked A1 again with this leg?" he asksbitterly.
"With rest it will get better. The joint is all right. It may limpa bit."
"Give me another cigarette," he says.
"Perhaps we could do something together later on, Kat." I am verymiserable, it is impossible that Kat--Kat my friend, Kat with thedrooping shoulders and the poor, thin moustache, Kat, whom I know asI know no other man, Kat with whom I have shared these years--it isimpossible that perhaps I shall not see Kat again.
"In any case give me your address at home, Kat. And here is mine, Iwill write it down for you."
I write his address in my pocket book. How forlorn I am already,though he still sits here beside me. Couldn't I shoot myself quicklyin the foot so as to be able to go with him.
Suddenly Kat gurgles and turns green and yellow. "Let us go on," hestammers.
I jump up, eager to help him, I take him up and start off at a run, aslow steady pace, so as not to jolt his leg too much.
My throat is parched; everything dances red and black before my eyes,I stagger on doggedly and pitilessly and at last reach the dressingstation.
There I drop down on my knees, but have still enough strength to fallon to the side where Kat's sound leg is. After a few minutes Istraighten myself up again. My legs and my hands tremble. I havetrouble in finding my water bottle, to take a pull. My lips trembleas I try to drink. But I smile--Kat is saved.
After a while I begin to sort out the confusion of voices that fallson my ears.
"You might have spared yourself that," says an orderly.
I look at him without comprehending.
He points to Kat. "He is stone dead."
I do not understand him. "He has been hit in the shin," I say.
The orderly stands still. "That as well."
I turn round. My eyes are still dulled, the sweat breaks out on meagain, it runs over my eyelids. I wipe it away and peer at Kat. Helies still. "Fainted," I say quickly.
The orderly whistles softly. "I know better than that. He is dead.I'll lay any money on that."
I shake my head: "Not possible. Only ten minutes ago I was talkingto him. He has fainted."
Kat's hands are warm, I pass my arm under his shoulders in order torub his temples with some tea. I feel my fingers become moist. As Idraw them away from behind his head, they are bloody. "You see----"The orderly whistles once more through his teeth.
On the way without my having noticed it, Kat has caught a splinter inthe head. There is just one little hole, it must have been a verytiny, stray splinter. But it has sufficed. Kat is dead.
Slowly I get up.
"Would you like to take his pay book and his things?" thelance-corporal asks me.
I nod, and he gives them to me.
The orderly is mystified. "You are not related, are you?"
No, we are not related. No, we are not related.
Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them moveround, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I standin the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman StanislausKatczinsky has died.
Then I know nothing more.
CHAPTER XII
It is autumn. There are not many of the old hands left. I am thelast of the seven fellows from our class.
Everyone talks of peace and armistice. All wait. If it again provesan illusion, then they will break up; hope is high, it cannot betaken away again without an upheaval. If there is not peace, thenthere will be revolution.
I have fourteen days rest, because I have swallowed a bit of gas; ina little garden I sit the whole day long in the sun. The armisticeis coming soon, I believe it now too. Then we will go home.
Here my thoughts stop and will not go any farther. All that meetsme, all that floods over me are but feelings--greed of life, love ofhome, yearning of the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But noaims.
Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strengthof our experiences we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we goback we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope.We will not be able to find our way any more.
And men will not understand us--for the generation that grew upbefore us, though it has passed these years with us here, already hada home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, andthe war will be forgotten--and the generation that has grown up afterus will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluouseven to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves,some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;--theyears will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.
But perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay,which will fly away as the dust, when I stand once again beneath thepoplars and listen to the rustling of their leaves. It cannot bethat it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, theunknown, the perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces ofthe future, the melodies from dreams and from books, the whispers anddivinations of women, it cannot be that this has vanished inbombardment, in despair, in brothels.
Here the trees show gay and golden, the berries of the rowan standred among the leaves, country roads run white out to the sky line,and the canteens hum like beehives with rumours of peace.
I stand up.
I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they bring menothing more, they can bring me nothing more. I am so alone, and sowithout hope that I can confront them without fear. The life thathas borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes.Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there itwill seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.
He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on thewhole front, that the army report confined itself to the singlesentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping.Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; hisface had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end hadcome.