We have dropped in for a good job. Eight of us have to guard a
village that has been abandoned because it is being shelled too
heavily.
In particular we have to watch the supply dump as that is not yet
empty. 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 are
mighty lucky all the same, all the other squads have had more
casualties than we have.
We select, as a dug-out, a reinforced concrete cellar into which
steps lead down from above. The entrance is protected by a separate
concrete wall.
Now we develop an immense industry. This is an opportunity not only
to stretch one's legs, but to stretch one's soul also. We make the
best use of such opportunities. The war is too desperate to allow us
to be sentimental for long. That is only possible so long as things
are not going too badly. After all, we cannot afford to be anything
but matter-of-fact. So matter-of-fact, indeed, that I often shudder
when a thought from the days before the war comes momentarily into my
head. But it does not stay long.
We have to take things as lightly as we can, so we make the most of
every opportunity, and nonsense stands stark and immediate beside
horror. It cannot be otherwise, that is how we hearten ourselves.
So we zealously set to work to create an idyll--an idyll of eating
and sleeping, of course.
The floor is first covered with mattresses which we haul in from the
houses. Even a soldier's behind likes to sit soft. Only in the
middle of the floor is there any clear space. Then we furnish
ourselves with blankets and eiderdowns, luxurious soft affairs.
There is plenty of everything to be had in the town. Albert and I
find a mahogany bed which can be taken to pieces, with a sky of blue
silk and a lace coverlet. We sweat like monkeys moving it in, but a
man cannot let a thing like that slip, and it would certainly be shot
to pieces in a day or two.
Kat and I do a little patrolling through the houses. In very short
time we have collected a dozen eggs and two pounds of fairly fresh
butter. Suddenly there is a crash in the drawing room, and an iron
stove hurtles through the wall past us and on, a yard from us out
through the wall behind. Two holes. It comes from the house
opposite where a shell has just landed. "The swine," grimaces Kat,
and we continue our search. All at once we prick up our ears, hurry
across, and suddenly stand petrified--there running up and down in a
little sty are two live sucking pigs. We rub our eyes and look once
again to make certain. Yes, they are still there. We seize hold of
them--no doubt about it, two real young pigs.
This will make a grand feed. About twenty yards from our dug-out
there is a small house that was used as an officers' billet. In the
kitchen is an immense fireplace with two ranges, pots, pans, and
kettles--everything, even to a stack of small chopped wood in an
outhouse--a regular cook's paradise.
Two of our fellows have been out in the fields all the morning
hunting for potatoes, carrots, and green peas. We are quite uppish
and sniff at the tinned stuff in the supply dump, we want fresh
vegetables. In the dining-room there are already two heads of
cauliflower.
The sucking pigs are slaughtered. Kat sees to them. We want to make
potato cakes to go with the roast. But we cannot find a grater for
the potatoes. However, that difficulty is soon got over. With a
nail 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 against
the grater, two others peel the potatoes, and the business gets going.
Kat takes charge of the sucking pigs, the carrots, the peas, and the
cauliflower. He even mixes a white sauce for the cauliflower. I fry
the pancakes, four at a time. After ten minutes I get the knack of
tossing the pan so that the pancakes which are done on the one side
sail up, turn in the air and are caught again as they come down. The
sucking pigs are baked whole. We all stand round them as before an
altar.
In the meantime we receive visitors, a couple of wireless-men, who
are generously invited to the feed. They sit in the living-room
where there is a piano. One of them plays, the other sings 'An der
Weser.' He sings feelingly, but with a rather Saxon accent. All the
same it moves us as we stand at the fireplace preparing the good
things.
Then we begin to realize that we are in for trouble. The observation
balloons have spotted the smoke from our chimney, and the shells
start to drop on us. They are those damned spraying little
daisy-cutters that make only a small hole and scatter widely close to
the ground. They keep dropping closer and closer all round us; still
we cannot leave the grub in the lurch. A couple of splinters whizz
through the top of the kitchen window. The roast is already cooked.
But frying the pancakes is getting difficult. The explosions come so
fast that the splinters strike often and oftener against the wall of
the house and sweep in through the window. Whenever I hear a shell
coming I drop down on one knee with the pan and the pancakes, and
duck behind the wall of the window. Immediately afterwards I am up
again and going on with the frying.
The Saxons stop singing--a fragment has smashed into the piano. At
last everything is ready and we organize the transport of it back to
the dug-out. After the next explosion two men dash across the fifty
yards to the dug-out with the pots of vegetables. We see them
disappear.
The next shot. Everyone ducks and then two more trot off, each with
a big can of finest grade coffee, and reach the dug-out before the
next explosion.
Then Kat and Kropp seize the masterpiece--the big dish with the
brown, roasted sucking pigs. A screech, a knee bend, and away they
race over the fifty yards of open country.
I stay to finish frying my last four pancakes; twice I have to drop
on the floor;--after all, it means four pancakes more, and they are
my favourite dish.
Then I grab the plate with the great pile of cakes and squeeze myself
behind the house door. A hiss, a crash, and I gallop off with the
plate clamped against my chest with both hands. I am almost in, I
run like a deer, sweep round the wall, fragments clatter against the
concrete, I tumble down the cellar steps, my elbows are skinned, but
I have not lost a single pancake, nor even broken the plate.
About two o'clock we start the meal. It lasts till six. We drink
coffee until half-past seven--officers' coffee from the supply
dump--and smoke officers' cigars and cigarettes--also from the supply
dump. Punctually at half-past seven we begin the evening meal.
About ten o'clock we throw the bones of the sucking pigs outside the
door. Then there is cognac and rum--also from the blessed supply
dump--and once again long, fat cigars with belly-bands. Tjaden
suggests that it lacks only one thing: Girls from an officers'
brothel.
Late in the evening we hear mewing. A little grey cat sits in the
entrance. We entice it in and give it something to eat. And that
wakes up our own appetites once more. Still chewing, we lie down to
sleep.
But the night is bad. We have eaten too much fat. Fresh baby pig is
very griping to the bowels. There is an everlasting coming and going
in the dug-out. Two, three men with their pants down are always
sitting about outside and cursing. I have been out nine times
myself. About four o'clock in the morning we reach a record: all
eleven men, guards and visitors, are squatting outside.
Burning houses stand out like torches against the night. Shells
lumber across and crash down. Munition columns tear along the
street. On one side the supply dump has been ripped open. In spite
of all the flying fragments the drivers of the munition columns pour
in like a swarm of bees and pounce on the bread. We let them have
their own way. If we said anything it would only mean a good hiding
for us. So we go differently about it. We explain that we are the
guard and so know our way about, we get hold of the tinned stuff and
exchange it for things we are short of. What does it matter
anyhow--in a while it will all be blown to pieces. For ourselves we
take some chocolate from the depot and eat it in slabs. Kat says it
is good for loose bowels.
Almost a fortnight passes thus in eating, drinking, and roaming
about. No one disturbs us. The town gradually vanishes under the
shells and we lead a charmed life. So long as any part of the supply
dump still stands we don't worry, we desire nothing better than to
stay 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 up
that way. And Kat is most cheerful. In the morning his first call
is: "Emil, bring in the caviare and coffee." We put on extraordinary
airs, every man treats the other as his valet, bounces him and gives
him orders. "There is something itching under my foot; Kropp, my
man, catch that louse at once," says Leer, poking out his leg at him
like a ballet girl, and Albert drags him up the stairs by the foot.
"Tjaden!"--"What?"--"Stand at ease, Tjaden; and what's more, don't
say 'What,' say 'Yes, Sir,'--now: Tjaden!" Tjaden retorts in the
well-known phrase from Goethe's "Götz von Berlichingen," with which
he is always very free.
After eight more days we receive orders to go back. The palmy days
are over. Two big motor lorries take us away. They are stacked high
with planks. Nevertheless, Albert and I erect on top our four-poster
bed complete with blue silk canopy, mattress, and two lace coverlets.
And behind it at the head is stowed a bag full of choice edibles. We
often dip into it, and the tough ham sausages, the tins of liver
sausages, 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 stand
inside 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 a
long 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 is
coming with us, and lies in the cage before her saucer of meat, and
purrs.
Slowly the lorries roll down the road. We sing. Behind us the
shells are sending up fountains from the now utterly abandoned town.
* *
A few days later we are sent out to evacuate a village. On the way
we meet the fleeing inhabitants trundling their goods and chattels
along 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, and
often an older girl leads the little ones who stumble onward and are
for ever looking back. A few carry miserable-looking dolls. All are
silent as they pass us by.
We are marching in column; the French do not fire on a town in which
there are still inhabitants. But a few minutes later the air
screams, the earth heaves, cries ring out; a shell has landed among
the rear squad. We scatter and fling ourselves down on the ground,
but at that moment I feel the instinctive alertness leave me which
hitherto has always made me do unconsciously the right thing under
fire; the thought leaps up with a terrible, throttling fear: "You are
lost"--and the next moment a blow sweeps like a whip over my left
leg. I hear Albert cry out; he is beside me.
"Quick, up, Albert!" I yell, for we are lying unsheltered in the open
field.
He staggers up and runs. I keep beside him. We have to get over a
hedge; it is higher than we are. Kropp seizes a branch, I heave him
up 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 the
hedge.
Our faces are smothered with duck-weed and mud, but the cover is
good. So we wade in up to our necks. Whenever a shell whistles we
duck our heads under the water. After we have done this a dozen
times, 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 his
shoulders. So we change our plan and run diagonally across country.
Albert begins to drag. "You go, I'll come on after," he says, and
throws himself down.
I seize him by the arm and shake him. "Up, Albert, if once you lie
down 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 him
up. The shot is just a little above his knee. Then I take a look at
myself. My trousers are bloody and my arm, too. Albert binds up my
wounds with his field dressing. Already he is no longer able to move
his leg, and we both wonder how we managed to get this far. Fear
alone made it possible; we would have run even if our feet had been
shot off;--we would have run on the stumps.
I can still crawl a little. I call out to a passing ambulance wagon
which picks us up. It is full of wounded. There is an army medical
lance-corporal with it who sticks an anti-tetanus needle into our
chests.
At the dressing station we arrange matters so that we lie side by
side. They give us a thin soup which we spoon down greedily and
scornfully, because we are accustomed to better times but are hungry
all 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 and
drink, 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 my
leg, 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 am
frightened and think quickly what I ought to do; for everyone knows
that the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightest
provocation. Under the great pressure of business that is much
simpler than complicated patching. I think of Kemmerich. Whatever
happens I will not let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack a
couple of their skulls.
It is all right. The surgeon pokes around in the wound and a
blackness comes before my eyes. "Don't carry on so," he says
gruffly, and hacks away. The instruments gleam in the bright light
like malevolent animals. The pain is insufferable. Two orderlies
hold my arms fast, but I break loose with one of them and try to
crash into the surgeon's spectacles just as he notices and springs
back. "Chloroform the scoundrel," he roars madly.
Then I become quiet. "Pardon me, Herr Doctor, I will keep still, but
do not chloroform me."
"Well now," he cackles and takes up his instrument again. He is a
fair fellow, not more than thirty years old, with scars and
disgusting gold spectacles. Now I see that he is tormenting me, he
is merely raking about in the wound and looking up surreptitiously at
me over his glasses. My hands squeeze around the grips, I'll kick
the bucket before he will get a squeak out of me.
He has fished out a piece of shell and tosses it to me. Apparently
he is pleased at my self-control, for he seems to be more considerate
of me now and says: "To-morrow you'll be off home." Then I am put in
plaster. When I am back again with Kropp I tell him that apparently
a hospital train comes in to-morrow morning.
"We must work the army medical sergeant-major so that we can keep
together, Albert."
I manage to slip the sergeant-major two of my cigars with
belly-bands, and then tip the word to him. He smells the cigars and
says: "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 you
out 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 our
ward. One of them sings hymns in a high cracked tenor before he
begins 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 last
time.
* *
Our stretchers stand on the platform. We wait for the train. It
rains and the station has no roof. Our covers are thin. We have
waited already two hours.
The sergeant-major looks after us like a mother. Although I feel
pretty bad I do not let our scheme out of my mind. Occasionally I
let him see the packet and give him one cigar in advance. In
exchange the sergeant-major covers us over with a water-proof sheet.
"Albert, old man," I suddenly bethink myself, "our four poster and
the cat----"
"And the club chairs," he adds.
Yes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening we used to sit
in them like lords, and intended later on to let them out by the
hour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regular
business, a real good living.
"And our bags of grub, too, Albert."
We grow melancholy. We might have made some use of the things. If
only the train left one day later Kat would be sure to find us and
bring us the stuff.
What damned hard luck! In our bellies there is gruel, mean hospital
stuff, and in our bags roast pork. But we are so weak that we cannot
work up any more excitement about it.
The stretchers are sopping wet by the time the train arrives in the
morning. The sergeant-major sees to it that we are put in the same
car. There is a crowd of red-cross nurses. Kropp is stowed in
below. 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-white
linen, that even has the marks of the iron still on it. And my shirt
has 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----" I
hesitate.
"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 such
overwhelming refinement.
"When you have been lying out there in the trenches, surely we can
wash a sheet," she goes on.
I look at her, she is young and crisp, spotless and neat, like
everything here; a man cannot realize that it isn't for officers
only, and feels himself strange and in some way even alarmed.
All the same, the woman is a tormentor, she is going to force me to
say it. "It is only----" I try again, surely she must know what I
mean.
"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 the
covers.
A hand gropes over the bed-cover. The sergeant-major. He goes off
with the cigars.
An hour later we notice that we are moving.
At night I cannot sleep. Kropp is restless too. The train rides
easily 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 the
bed 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 lie
on 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 light
and 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 at
me with her clear eyes, and the more wonderful and sweet she is the
less am I able to tell her what I want.
I am lifted up into bed again. That will be all right. As soon as
she 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 no
difference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turns
round. "Sister, he wants----" but no more does Albert know how to
express it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a single
word, but here, to such a lady---- All at once he remembers his
school days and finishes hastily: "He wants to leave the room,
sister."
"Ah!" says the sister, "but he shouldn't climb out of his bed with
his 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 what
the 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, and
by morning we are quite accustomed to it and ask for what we want
without any false modesty.
The train travels slowly. Sometimes it halts and the dead are
unloaded. 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 the
plaster bandage. They itch terribly, and I cannot scratch myself.
We sleep through the days. The country glides quietly past the
window. The third night we reach Herbstal. I hear from the sister
that Albert is to be put off at the next station because of his
fever. "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 my
head. 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 under
Kat's tuition if I did not know what to do now. These army
thermometers are not made for old soldiers. All one has to do is to
drive the quicksilver up and then it stays there without falling
again.
I stick the thermometer under my arm at a slant, and flip it steadily
with 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 it
up 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 in
a whisper: "I can't bear it any longer----"
She notes me down on a slip of paper. I know perfectly well my
plaster bandage will not be re-opened if it can be avoided. Albert
and I are put off together.
* *
We are in the same room in a Catholic Hospital. That is a piece of
luck, the Catholic infirmaries are noted for their good treatment and
good food. The hospital has been filled up from our train, there are
a great many bad cases amongst them. We do not get examined to-day
because there are too few surgeons. The flat trolleys with the
rubber wheels pass continually along the corridor, and always with
someone stretched at full length upon them. A damnable position,
stretched out at full length like that;--the only time it is good is
when one is asleep.
The night is very disturbed. No one can sleep. Toward morning we
doze a little. I wake up just as it grows light. The door stands
open and I hear voices from the corridor. The others wake up too.
One fellow, who has been there a couple of days already explains it
to us: "Up here in the corridor every morning the sisters say
prayers. They call it Morning Devotion. And so that you can get
your share, they leave the door open."
No doubt it is well meant, but it gives us aches in our head and
bones.
"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," he
replies.
Albert groans. I get furious and call out: "Be quiet out there!"
A minute later a sister appears. In her black and white dress she
looks 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 smiles
innocently. "And it is seven o'clock already."
Albert groans again. "Shut the door," I snort.
She is quite disconcerted. Apparently she cannot understand. "But
we are saying prayers for you too."
"Shut the door, anyway."
She disappears leaving the door open. The intoning of the Litany
proceeds.
I feel savage, and say: "I'm going to count up to three. If it
doesn'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 it
through the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousand
pieces. The praying stops. A swarm of sisters appear and reproach
us 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 threatens
us with clink and all the rest of it. But a hospital inspector is
just the same as a commissariat inspector, or any one else who wears
a long dagger and shoulder straps, but is really a clerk, and is
never considered even by a recruit as a real officer. So we let him
talk. What can they do to us, anyway----
"Who threw the bottle?" he asks.
Before I can think whether I should report myself, someone says: "I
did."
A man with a bristling beard sits up. Everyone is excited; why
should he report himself?
"You?"
"Yes. I was annoyed because we were waked up unnecessarily and lost
my 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 you
at all!"
He grins. "That doesn't matter. I have a shooting licence."
Then, of course, we all understand. Whoever has a shooting licence
can do just whatever he pleases.
"Yes," he explains, "I got a crack in the head and they presented me
with a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible for
my actions. Ever since then I've had a grand time. No one dares to
annoy me. And nobody does anything to me."
"I reported myself because the shot amused me. If they open the door
again to-morrow we will pitch another."
We are overjoyed. With Josef Hamacher in our midst we can now risk
anything.
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, alongside
him, has a shot in the arm which didn't look too bad at first. But
the third night he calls out to us, telling us to ring, he thinks he
has a hæmorrhage.
I ring loudly. The night sister does not come. We have been making
rather heavy demands on her during the night, because we have all
been freshly bandaged, and so have a good deal of pain. One wants
his leg placed so, another so, a third wants water, a fourth wants
her to shake up his pillow;--in the end the buxom old body grumbled
bad temperedly and slammed the doors. Now no doubt she thinks it is
something 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 there
is only one night sister, perhaps she has something to do in one of
the other rooms. "Franz, are you quite sure you are bleeding?" I
ask. "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 us
can stand up. I hold my thumb against the button of the bell till it
becomes numb. Perhaps the sister has fallen asleep. They certainly
have a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day. And
added to that is the everlasting praying.
"Should we smash a bottle?" asks Josef Hamacher of the shooting
licence.
"She wouldn't hear that any more than the bell."
At last the door opens. The old lady appears, mumbling. When she
perceives Franz's trouble she begins to bustle, and says: "Why did
not 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 we
look at his face, it has become sharp and yellow, whereas the evening
before he looked almost healthy. Now a sister comes oftener.
* *
Sometimes there are red-cross voluntary aid sisters. They are
pleasant, but often rather unskilled. They frequently give us pain
when re-making our beds, and then are so frightened that they hurt us
still 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. A
few of them have real spirit, they are superb. There is no one who
would not do anything for Sister Libertine, this marvellous sister,
who spreads good cheer through the whole wing even when she can only
be seen in the distance. And there are others like her. We would go
through fire for her. A man cannot really complain, here he is
treated by the nuns exactly like a civilian. On the other hand, just
to think of a garrison hospital gives a man the creeps.
Franz Wachter does not regain his strength. One day he is taken away
and does not come back. Josef Hamacher knows all about it: "We
shan'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 to
kick the bucket is put in there. There are two beds in it. It is
generally called the Dying Room."
"But what do they do that for?"
"They don't have so much work to do afterwards. It is more
convenient, too, because it lies right beside the lift to the
mortuary. Perhaps also they do it for the sake of the others, so
that no one in the ward dies in sympathy. And they can look after
him better, too, if he is by himself."
"But what about him?"
Josef shrugs his shoulders. "Usually he doesn't take much notice any
more."
"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 couple
of days later they take the new man away, too. Josef makes a
significant gesture. We see many come and go.
Often relatives sit by the beds and weep or talk softly and
awkwardly. One old woman will not go away, but she cannot stay there
the whole night through. Another morning she comes very early, but
not early enough; for as she goes up to the bed, someone else is in
it already. She has to go to the mortuary. The apples that she has
brought with her she gives to us.
And then little Peter begins to get worse. His temperature chart
looks 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 his
tunic from the hook and putting it on the trolley too, so that she
should not have to make two journeys. Peter understands immediately
and tries to roll off the trolley. "I'm stopping here!"
They push him back. He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: "I
won'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 raise
himself 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 last
Josef says: "Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, he
never comes through."
* *
I am operated on and vomit for two days. My bones will not grow
together, so the surgeon's secretary says. Another fellow's have
grown 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 small
operation, and then you will have perfectly sound feet. Enter them
down, 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 scientific
stunt of the old boy's. He goes absolutely crazy whenever he can get
hold of anyone to do it on. He operates on you for flat feet, and
there's no mistake, you don't have them any more; you have club feet
instead, 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 you
are! At present you can still walk, but if once the old boy gets you
under the knife you'll be cripples. What he wants is little dogs to
experiment with, so the war is a glorious time for him, as it is for
all the surgeons. You take a look down below at the staff; there are
a dozen fellows hobbling around that he has operated on. A lot of
them have been here all the time since 'fourteen and 'fifteen. Not a
single one of them can walk better than he could before, almost all
of them worse, and most only with plaster legs. Every six months he
catches them again and breaks their bones afresh, and every time is
going to be the successful one. You take my word, he won't dare to
do it if you say No."
"Ach, man," says one of the two unfortunates, "better your feet than
your brain-box. There's no telling what you'll get if you go back
out there again. They can do with me just as they please, so long as
I get back home. Better to have a club foot than be dead."
The other, a young fellow like ourselves, won't have it done. One
morning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws at
them so long, that in the end they consent. What else could they
do?--They are mere privates, and he is a big bug. They are brought
back chloroformed and plastered.
* *
It is going badly with Albert. They have taken him and amputated his
leg. The whole leg has been taken off from the thigh. Now he hardly
speaks any more. Once he says he will shoot himself the first time
he can get hold of his revolver again.
A new convoy arrives. Our room gets two blind men. One of them is a
very youthful musician. The sisters never have a knife with them
when they feed him; he has already snatched one from a sister. But
in spite of this caution there is an incident. In the evening, while
he is being fed, the sister is called away, and leaves the plate with
the fork on his table. He gropes for the fork, seizes it and drives
it with all his force against his heart, then he snatches up a shoe
and strikes with it against the handle as hard as he can. We call
for help and three men are necessary to take the fork away from him.
The blunt prongs had already penetrated deep. He abuses us all night
so 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, it
is too small; fellows die during the night in our room. They go even
faster than the sisters can cope with them.
But one day the door flies open, the flat trolley rolls in, and there
on the stretcher, pale, thin, upright and triumphant, with his shaggy
head of curls sits Peter. Sister Libertine with beaming looks pushes
him over to his former bed. He is back from the Dying Room. We have
long 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 ever
known of such a thing.
* *
Gradually a few of us venture to stand up. And I am given crutches
to hobble around on. But I do not make much use of them; I cannot
bear Albert's gaze as I move about the room. His eyes always follow
me with such a strange look. So I sometimes escape to the
corridor;--there I can move about more freely.
On the next floor below are the abdominal and spine cases, head
wounds and double amputations. On the right side of the wing are the
jaw wounds, gas cases, nose, ear, and neck wounds. On the left the
blind and the lung wounds, pelvis wounds, wounds in the joints,
wounds in the testicles, wounds in the intestines. Here a man
realizes for the first time in how many places a man can get hit.
Two fellows die of tetanus. Their skin turns pale, their limbs
stiffen, at last only their eyes live--stubbornly. Many of the
wounded have their shattered limbs hanging free in the air from a
gallows; underneath the wound a basin is placed into which the pus
drips. Every two or three hours the vessel is emptied. Other men
lie in stretching bandages with heavy weights hanging from the end of
the bed. I see intestine wounds that are constantly full of excreta.
The surgeon's clerk shows me X-ray photographs of completely smashed
hip-bones, knees, and shoulders.
A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still
human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one
hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in
Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in
Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done,
or thought, when such things are possible. It must all be lies and
of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent
this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in
their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but
despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss
of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in
silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one
another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons
and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of
my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world, see these
things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What
would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and
proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever
comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been
killing;--it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is
limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come
out of us?
* *
The oldest man in our room is Lewandowski. He is forty, and has
already lain ten months in the hospital with a severe abdominal
wound. Just in the last few weeks he has improved sufficiently to be
able to hobble about doubled up.
For some days past he has been in great excitement. His wife has
written 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 has
lost his appetite, he even gives away red cabbage and sausage after
he has had a couple of mouthfuls. He goes round the room perpetually
with the letter. Everyone has already read it a dozen times, the
post-marks have been examined heaven knows how often, the address is
hardly legible any longer for spots of grease and thumb-marks, and in
the end what is sure to happen, happens: Lewandowski develops a
fever, and has to go back to bed.
He has not seen his wife for two years. In the meantime she has
given birth to a child, whom she is bringing with her. But something
else occupies Lewandowski's thoughts. He had hoped to get permission
to go out when his old woman came; for obviously seeing is all very
well, but when a man gets his wife again after such a long time, if
at all possible, a man wants something else besides.
Lewandowski has discussed it all with us at great length; in the army
there are no secrets about such things. And what's more, nobody
finds anything objectionable in it. Those of us who are already able
to 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 even
knows 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. We
console 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 with
ribbons; heaven knows where she inherited the thing.
She murmurs something softly and stands shyly in the doorway. It
terrifies her that there are six of us men present.
"Well, Marja," says Lewandowski, and gulps dangerously with his
Adam'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 she
produces the child, which in the interval has done something in its
napkin. From a large handbag embroidered with pearls she takes out a
clean one and makes the child fresh and presentable. This dispels
her first embarrassment, and the two begin to talk.
Lewandowski is very fidgety, every now and then he squints across at
us most unhappily with his round goggle eyes.
The time is favourable, the doctor's visit is over, at the most there
couldn't be more than one sister left in the ward. So one of us goes
out 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 red
and looks embarrassed. We grin good-naturedly and make pooh-poohing
gestures, what does it matter! The devil take all the conventions,
they were made for other times; here lies the carpenter Johann
Lewandowski, a soldier shot to a cripple, and there is his wife; who
knows when he will see her again? He wants to have her, and he
should have her, good.
Two men stand at the door to forestall the sisters and keep them
occupied if they chance to come along. They agree to stand guard for
a quarter of an hour or thereabouts.
Lewandowski can only lie on his side, so one of us props a couple of
pillows against his back. Albert gets the child to hold, we all turn
round a bit, the black mantilla disappears under the bed-clothes, we
make a great clatter and play skat noisily.
All goes well. I hold a club solo with four jacks which nearly goes
the round. In the process we almost forget Lewandowski. After a
while 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 in
its mouth, and is back again with its mother. The business is over.
We now feel ourselves like one big family, the woman is rather
quieter, and Lewandowski lies there sweating and beaming.
He unpacks the embroidered handbag, and some good sausages come to
light; Lewandowski takes up the knife with a flourish and saws the meat
into slices.
With a handsome gesture he waves toward us--and the little woman goes
from 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 and
shakes up our pillows for us.
* *
After a few weeks I have to go each morning to the massage
department. There my leg is harnessed up and made to move. The arm
has healed long since.
New convoys arrive from the line. The bandages are no longer made of
cloth, but of white crêpe paper. Rag bandages have become scarce at
the front.
Albert's stump heals well. The wound is almost closed. In a few
weeks he should go off to an institute for artificial limbs. He
continues 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 he
were not here with us he would have shot himself long ago. But now
he 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 is
all 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 gets
used to that sort of thing in the army.