But now, under the pitying eyes of these Americans, we perceive how much in vain it has all been. The sight of their interminable, well-equipped columns reveals to us against what hopeless odds in man-power and material we made our stand.
We bite our lips and look at each other. Bethke withdraws his shoulder from under the American's hand; Kosole stares ahead into vacancy; Ludwig Breyer draws himself up—we grip our rifles more firmly; we brace our knees, our eyes become harder and our gaze does not falter. We look back once more over the country whence we have come; our faces become tight with suppressed emotion, and once again the searing memory passes through us: all we have done, all we have suffered, and all that we have left behind.
We do not know what is the matter with us; but if a bitter word were now loosed against us it would sting us to fury, and whether we wanted to or not we would burst forward, wild and breathless, mad and lost, to fight—in spite of everything, to fight again.
A thick-set sergeant with a ruddy face elbows his way toward us. Over Kosole who stands nearest him he pours a flood of German words. Ferdinand winces, it so astonishes him.
"He talks just the same as we do!" he says to Bethke in amazement, "what do you make of that, now?"
The fellow speaks German better and more fluently even than Kosole himself. He explains that he was in Dresden before the war, and had many friends there.
"In Dresden?" asks Kosole even more staggered. "Why! was there once myself for a couple of years "
The sergeant smiles, as though that identified him once and for all. He names the street where he had lived.
"Not five minutes from me!" exclaims Ferdinand excitedly. "Fancy not having seen one another! You will know Widow Pohl, perhaps, at the corner, Johannis Street? A fat old body with black hair. My landlady."
But the sergeant does not know her, and in exchangesubmits Zander, a clerk in the Treasury, whom Kosole in his turn cannot recall. Both of them, however, remember the Elbe and the castle, and their eyes light up with pleasure. Ferdinand seizes the sergeant by the arm: "Why, man—you talk German like a native! So you've been in Dresden, eh?——Man, but what have we two been fighting about?"
The sergeant laughs. He doesn't know either. He takes out a packet of cigarettes and offers it to Kosole, who reaches for it eagerly—there is not a man of us but would willingly give his soul for a good cigarette. Our own are made from beech leaves and dried grass, and even those are only the better sort. Valentin Laher declares that the ordinary ones are made of seaweed and dried horse-dung, and Valentin is a connoisseur of such things.
Kosole blows out the smoke lingeringly, with relish. We sniff enviously. Laher changes colour. His nostrils quiver. "Give's a draw," he says imploringly to Ferdinand. But before he can take the cigarette another American has offered him a packet of Virginia tobacco. Valentin looks at him incredulously. He takes it and smells it. His face lights up. Then reluctantly he returns the tobacco. But the other declines it and points energetically at the cockade on Laher's forage cap, which is sticking out from the top of his haversack.
Valentin does not understand him. "He wants to exchange the tobacco for the cap badge," explains the sergeant from Dresden. But Laher understands that even less. "This spanking tobacco for a tin cockade? The man must be balmy!" Valentin would not swop the packet for a commission. He offers the cap, badge and all, to the American, and with trembling hands greedily fills his first pipe.
And now we realise what is expected—the Americans want to exchange. It is apparent that they have not long been in the war; they are still collecting souvenirs, shoulder-straps, badges, belt buckles, decorations, uniform buttons.
In exchange we stock ourselves with soap, cigarettes, chocolate and tinned meat. They even want us to take a handful of money for our dog—but we draw the line there; let them offer what they will, the dog stays with us. On the other hand our wounded bring us luck. One American, with so much gold in his mouth that his face looks like a brass foundry, is anxious to get some pieces of bandage with blood on them, in order to be able to demonstrate to the folk at home that they actually were made of paper. He is offering first-rate biscuits and, better still, an armful of real bandages in exchange. With the utmost satisfaction he carefully stows the rags away in his pocketbook, especially those belonging to Ludwig Breyer; for that is lieutenant's blood, you see. Ludwig must write on it in pencil, the place, his name and regiment, so that everyone in America may see the thing is no fake. He is unwilling at first—but Willy persuades him, for we need good bandages sorely. And besides, the biscuits are an absolute godsend to him with his dysentery.
But Arthur Ledderhose makes the best coup. He produces a box of Iron Crosses that he found in an abandoned orderly-room. An American, as wizened as himself, with just such another lemon-yellow face, wants to buy the whole box at one deal. But Ledderhose merely gives him one long, knowing slant from his squinting eyes. The American returns the look just as impassively, just as seemingly harmless. One suddenly saw in them a family likeness, as of two brothers. Something that has survived all the chances of war and death has flashed between them—the spirit of trade.
Ledderhose's antagonist soon sees that there is nothing doing. Arthur is not to be tricked; his wares will be decidedly more profitable disposed of in retail, so he barters them one by one, till the box is empty. About him there gradually rises up a pile of goods, even butter, and silk, eggs, linen, and money until finally he stands there on his bandy legs looking like a departmental store.
We take our leave. The Americans call and wave after us. The sergeant especially is indefatigable. Even Kosole is moved, so far as an old soldier can be. He too grunts a few words of farewell and waves his hand; but in him all this has still an air of menace. Then at last he ventures to Bethke: "Quite decent fellows, eh?"
Adolf nods. We go on in silence. Ferdinand lowers his head. He is thinking. Such is not his habit, but when the fit does take him he is tenacious, and will chew the cud a long time. He cannot get the sergeant from Dresden out of his head.
In the villages the folk stare after us. At a railway-crossing there are flowers in the watchman's window. A woman with ample breasts is suckling a child. She has a blue dress on. Dogs bark after us. Wolf growls in answer. On the roadside a cock is treading a hen. We smoke vacantly.
Marching, marching. We have now reached the zone of field ambulance stations, of supply depots. A spacious park with plane-trees. Stretchers and wounded under the trees. The leaves are falling and covering them in red and gold.
A gas hospital. Bad cases that cannot be moved. Blue faces, waxen green faces, dead eyes, eaten by the acid; wheezing, choking, dying men. They all want to get away; they are afraid of being taken prisoner.—As if it were not a matter of indifference where they die.
We try to cheer them, telling them they will be better cared for with the Americans. But they do not listen. Again and again they call to us to take them with us.
The cries are terrible. The pallid faces seem so unreal in the light out here in the open. But most awful are the beards. They take on a life of their own, they stand out stiff, fantastical, growing, luxuriating over the sunken jaws, a black fungus that feeds and thrives the more these sag and waste away.
A few of the badly wounded reach out their thin, grey arms like children. "Take me with you, mate," they say, imploring. "Take me with you, mate." In the hollows of their eyes already lurk deep, strange shadows, from which the pupils struggle up with difficulty like drowning things. Others are quiet, following us as far as they can with their eyes.
The cries sound gradually fainter. The road drags on toilsomely. We are carrying a lot of stuff—a man must bring something back home with him. Clouds hang in the sky. During the afternoon the sun breaks through, and birch-trees, now with only a few leaves left, hang mirrored in puddles of rain along the way. Soft blue haze is caught in the branches.
As I march on with pack and lowered head, by the side of the road I see images of the bright,
silken trees reflected in the pools of rain. In these occasional mirrors they are displayed clearer than in reality. They get another light and in another way. Embedded there in the brown earth lies a span of sky, trees, depths and clearness. Suddenly I shiver. For the first time in many years I feel again that something is still beautiful, that this in all its simplicity is beautiful and pure, this image in the water pool before me —and in this thrill my heart leaps up. For a moment all that other falls away, and now, for the first time I feel it; I see it; I comprehend it fully: Peace. The weight that nothing eased before, now lifts at last. Something strange, something new flies up, a dove, a white dove. Trembling horizon, tremulous expectancy, first glimpse, presentiment, hope, exaltation, imminence: Peace.
Sudden panic, and I look round—there behind me on the stretchers my comrades are now lying and still they call. It is peace, yet they must die. But I, I am trembling with joy and am not ashamed. And that is odd.
Because none can ever wholly feel what another suffers —is that the reason why wars perpetually recur?
2.
In the afternoon we are sitting around in a brewery yard. From the office of the factory comes our company commander, Lieutenant Heel, and calls us together. An order has come through that representatives are to be elected from the ranks. We are astounded. No one has ever heard of such a thing before.
Then Max Weil appears in the courtyard, waving a newspaper and shouting: "There's revolution in Berlin!"
Heel swings around. "Rubbish!" he says sharply. "There are disturbances in Berlin."
But Weil has not done yet. "The Kaiser's fled to Holland!"
That wakes us up. Weil must be mad surely. Heel turns fiery red. "Damned liar!" he roars.
Weil hands him the paper. Heel screws it up and glares furiously at Weil. He cannot bear Weil, for Weil is a Jew, a quiet fellow, who is always sitting about, reading. But Heel is a fire-eater.
"All talk," he growls and looks at Weil as if he would choke him.
Max unbuttons his tunic and produces yet another Special Edition. Heel glances at it, tears it to bits and goes back into his billet. Weil gathers up the shreds of his newspaper, pieces them together and reads us the news. And we just sit there like a row of sotted hens. This is clean beyond our comprehension.
"It says, he wanted to avoid a civil war," says Weil.
"What rot!" snaps Kosole. "Supposing we had said that a while back, eh? Well I'll be damned! So that's what we've been holding out here for?"
"Jupp," says Bethke, shaking his head, "just give me a dig in the ribs, will you, and see if I'm still here." Jupp establishes the fact. "Then it must be so, no doubt," continues Bethke. "All the same I don't quite catch on to the idea. Why, if one of us had done that, they would have stood him up against the wall!"
"Best not to think of Wessling and Schröder now," mutters Kosole, clenching his fists, "else I'll run amok. Poor little Schröder, a mere kid, and there he lay all bashed to a jelly—and the man he died for just cuts and runs!—Dirty scum!" Suddenly he sends his heels crashing against a beer cask.
Willy Homeyer makes a gesture of dismissal. "Let's talk about something else," he then suggests. "For my part I've done with the fellow, absolutely."
Weil starts to explain how Soldiers' Councils have already been set up in a number of the regiments. The officers are not the leaders any more. Many of them have even had their shoulder-straps ripped off.
He would have us set up a Soldiers' Council too. But he does not get much encouragement. We don't want to set up anything any more. All we want is to get home. And we can do that quite well as we are.
In the end we elect three representatives: Adolf Bethke, Weil and Ludwig Breyer.
Weil wants Ludwig to take down his shoulder-straps.
"Here—" says Ludwig wearily, lightly smoothing his forehead. But Bethke shoves Weil back. "Ludwig belongs to us," he says curtly.
Breyer came to our company as a volunteer and was afterwards given a commission. It is not only with Trosske, Homeyer, Broger and me that he talks familiarly—that goes without saying, of course, we were former schoolfellows—but, when no other officer is about, he is the same with all his old mates in the ranks. And his credit stands high in consequence.
"Well, Heel then," insists Weil.
That is easier to understand. Weil has often been ridiculed by Heel—what wonder than if he now means to savour his triumph. That, we feel, is no business of ours. Heel was rather harsh, it is true, but he did go for them; he was always up and coming where there was trouble. And a soldier gives credit for that.
"Well, you can ask him, of course," says Bethke.
"But take a few bandages along with you," Tjaden calls after him.
The event takes a different turn, however. Heel issues from the office just as Weil is about to enter. He has some message-forms in his hand. He points to them. "You're right," he says to Max.
Weil begins to speak. When he comes to the question of the shoulder-straps, Heel makes a swift movement. For an instant we imagine there is going to be a stand-up fight, but to our astonishment the company commander merely says abruptly: "Quite so!" Then turning to Ludwig he lays a hand on his shoulder. "You don't understand, perhaps, Breyer? A private's tunic, that's the idea. The other is finished with now."
No one utters a word. This is not the Heel that we know —the man who would go on patrol at night armed with nothing but a walking-stick, whom everyone regarded as bullet-proof. This man is hard put to it just to stand up and speak.
This evening as I lay already asleep, I was roused by sounds of whispering. "You're pulling my leg," I hear Kosole say. "Fact," persists Willy. "You come and see."
They get up hastily and go out into the yard. I follow them. There is a light in the office, so that is is possible to see inside. Heel is seated at the table. His blue officer's jacket, the litejka, is lying before him. The shoulder-straps have gone. He is wearing a private's tunic. His head is in his hands, and—but no, that cannot be—I go a step nearer—Heel, Heel is crying.
"Can you beat it!" whispers Tjaden.
"Hop it," says Bethke and gives Tjaden a kick. We sneak off embarrassed.
Next morning we hear that a major in one of the neighbouring regiments shot himself when he learned of the flight of the Emperor.
Heel is coming. He is grey and worn with sleeplessness. Quietly he gives the necessary instructions. Then he goes again. And we all feel just terrible. The last thing that was left to us has been taken away—the very ground cut from under our feet.
"It's betrayed, well and truly betrayed, that's what we are," says Kosole grumpily.
Very different from yesterday is the column that lines uptoday and marches dismally off—a lost company, anabandoned army. The entrenching tool claps with everystep—monotonous melody—in vain—in vain——
Only Ledderhose is as happy as a lark. He sells us tinned meat and sugar out of his American plunder.
Next evening we reach Germany. Now that French is no longer spoken everywhere around us, we begin at last to believe that the peace is real. Until now we have been secretly expecting an order to turn about and go back to the trenches—a soldier is mistrustful of good, it is better to expect the contrary from the outset. But now a bubbling ferment begins slowly to work in us.
We enter a large village. A few bedraggled garlands hang across the street. So many troops have passed through already that it is not worth while to make any special fuss about us, the last of them, So we must content ourselves with the faded welcome of a few rain-sodden placards loosely looped round with oak leaves cut out of green paper. The people hardly so much as look at us as we march by, so accustomed have they grown to it. But for us it is a new thing to come here and we hunger for a few friendly looks, however much we may pretend we do not give a damn. The girls at least might stop and wave to us. Every now and then Tjaden and Jupp try to attract the attention of one, but without success. We look too grisly, no doubt. So in the end they give it u
p.
Only the children accompany us. We take them by the hand and they run along beside us. We give them all the chocolate we can spare—we want, of course, to take some small part of it home. Adolf Bethke has taken a little girl up in his arms. She tugs at his beard as if it were a bridle, and laughs with glee to see his grimaces. The little hands pat his face. He catches hold of one of them to show me how tiny it is.
The child begins to cry now that he is pulling no more faces. Adolf tries to pacify her, but she only cries the more loudly and he has to put her down.
"We seem to have turned into first-rate bogeymen," growls Kosole.
"Who wouldn't be scared of such a prize front-line phiz," Willy explains to him, "it must just give them the creeps."