"Well!" I say once we are outside. "He seems to think we've just been off on a bit of a walk!"
Albert makes a listless gesture. "Civilian beetle——"
We stroll on. Late in the evening we run into Willy and set off together for the barracks.
En route Willy suddenly springs to one side, and I crouch down likewise. The unmistakable howl of a shell coming—then we look round mystified and laugh. It was merely the screech of an electric team.
Jupp and Valentin, looking rather forlorn, are squatting in a great empty room meant to accommodate a whole platoon. Tjaden has not come back yet apparently. He is still at the brothel, no doubt. At sight of us their faces beam with satisfaction—now they will be able to make up a game of skat.
The short time has sufficed for Jupp to become a Soldiers' Councillor. He just appointed himself, and now continues to be one for the reason that the confusion in the barracks is such that no one knows any difference. It will do to keep him for the moment, his civil occupation having gone west. The solicitor for whom he used to work in Cologne has written to tell him that women are now doing the work excellently and more cheaply, whereas Jupp during his time in the army will have grown out of office requirements, no doubt. He deeply regrets it, so he says; the times are hard. Best wishes for the future.
"It's a cow!" says Jupp glumly. "All these years a man has been living for just one thing—to get clear of the Prussians—and now he has to be thankful if he is able to stay on—Well, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other—I'll go eighteen."
Willy has a corker of a hand. "Twenty," I answer for him. "And you, Valentin?"
He shrugs his shoulders. "Twenty-four."
As Jupp passes forty Karl Bröger appears. "Just thought I'd look in and see what you were doing," he says.
"So you looked in here, eh?" says Willy with a smirk, settling himself down large and comfortable. "Well, I suppose barracks are the soldier's real home, if it comes to that. Forty-one!"
"Forty-six," advances Valentin, defiantly.
"Forty-eight," Willy thunders back.
"Christ! This is big bidding!" We draw in closer. Willy leans back luxuriously against the locker and shows us privately a Grand. But Valentin is grinning ominously—he has the still more powerful Nul Ouvert up his sleeve.
It is wonderfully cosy in the barracks here. A stump of candle stands flickering on the table and the bedsteads loom dimly in the shadows. Then the great chunks of cheese that Jupp has scrounged up from somewhere. He proffers each his portion on the end of a bayonet. We munch contentedly.
"Fifty!" says Valentin.
The door flings open and in bursts Tjaden. "Se—Se—" he stutters and in his excitement develops a terrible hiccough. We lead him with upraised arms round the room. "Did the whores pinch your money?" asks Willy sympathetically.
He shakes his head. "Se—Se——"
"Halt!" shouts Willy, in a voice of command.
Tjaden springs to attention. The hiccough has gone.
"Seelig—I've found Seelig," he cries jubilantly.
"Boy," roars Willy, "if you lie, I'll pitch you clean out the window!"
Seelig was our company sergeant-major, a pig of the first water. Unfortunately two months before the Revolution he was transferred, so that we have not as yet been able to get track of him. Tjaden explains that he is running a pub, the "König Wilhelm," and keeps a marvellous good drop of beer.
"Let's go!" I shout, and we troop out.
"But not without Ferdinand," says Willy. "We must find him first."—Ferdinand has an account to settle with Seelig on Schröder's behalf.
In front of Kosole's house we whistle and cat-call until at last he comes fuming to the window in his nightshirt. "What the hell's up with you—at this hour of night?" he growls. "Don't you know I'm a married man?"
"Plenty of time for that," shouts Willy. "Shake a leg, come down out of it, we've found Seelig."
Ferdinand now shows signs of interest. "Honest?" he asks.
"As true as I'm standing here," Tjaden assures him.
"Righto, I'm coming!" he answers. "But God help you if you're pulling my leg "
Five minutes later he joins us below and learns how matters stand. We push off.
As we turn into Hook Street, Willy in his excitement bumps into a chap and sends him head over heels. "You great rhinoceros!" the man on the ground shouts after him.
Willy turns about sharply and stands over him threateningly. "Pardon! did you speak?" he asks touching his cap. The other picks himself up and looks at Willy. "Not that I can remember," he answers sullenly.
"Just as well for you!" says Willy. "You haven't the right build to be insulting."
We cut across the park and pull up outside the "König Wilhelm." The name has already been painted over. It is now called the Edleweiss. Willy reaches for the latch.
"Half a mo'!" Kosole lays hold of his great paw. "Willy," he says, almost imploringly, "if it comes to a dust up, I do the dusting! Is that right? Give us your hand on it."
"Right you are," agrees Willy, and throws open the door.
Noise, light and thick smoke come out to meet us. The clinking of glasses. An orchestrion is thundering the march fromThe Merry Widow. The taps along the counter sparkle. An eddy of laughter is swirling about the bar-sink where two girls are rinsing the froth from the empty glasses. A swarm of men stands clustered around them. They are exchanging jokes. Water slops over, mirroring the faces, tattered and distorted. An artilleryman orders a round of schnapps, at the same time pinching the girl's behind. "Good pre-war stuff, this, eh, Lina?" he roars jovially.
We elbow our way in. "So! there he is!" says Willy.
With sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned, sweating, with moist red neck, behind the counter stands the host drawing off the beer, that streams down brown and golden from under his fat hands into the glasses. Now he looks up. A broad grin spreads over his face. "Hullo! You here! What's it to be, light or dark?"
"Light, Herr Sergeant-Major," replies Tjaden impudently. He counts us with his eyes.
"Seven," says Willy.
"Seven," repeats Seelig with a glance at Ferdinand, "six—and Kosole, by Jove!"
Ferdinand pushes up to the counter. He leans with both hands against the edge of it. "Say, Seelig, have you got any rum?"
Seelig fusses about behind his row of nickle pump-handles. "Rum? Why, yes, of course I've got rum."
Kosole looks up at him. "You're rather partial to it, if I remember?"
Seelig is filling a row of cognac glasses. "Yes, I do rather like it, as a matter of fact."
"Happen to remember the last time you got tight on it?"
"No, can't say I do——"
"But I dol" shouts Kosole, standing at the counter like a bull glaring over a hedge. "Ever hear the name Schröder?"
"Schröder?—It's a very common name, Schröder," says Seelig casually.
That is too much for Kosole. He gets ready to spring. But Willy seizes him and pushes him down into a chair. "Drink first—Seven light!" he repeats over the bar.
Kosole is silent. We sit down at a table. Seelig brings us the pints himself. "Good health!" says he.
"Good health!" answers Tjaden, and we drink. Tjaden leans back. "There now, didn't I tell you?"
Ferdinand's eyes follow Seelig as he goes back behindthe counter. "My God," he mutters fiercely, "and to think how that swob stank of rum the night we buried Schröder——"
He breaks off.
"Now don't come unstuck," says Tjaden gently.
Then, as though Kosole's words had suddenly plucked aside a curtain that until now had but lightly swayed and shifted, a grey, ghostly desolation begins to unfold there in the bar-room. The windows disappear, shadows rise up through the floor-boards and memory hovers in the smoke-laden air.
There had never been any love lost between Kosole and Seelig, but it was not until August of 1918 that they became deadly enemies. We were holding a stretch of battered trench at the ti
me just in rear of the front line and had to work all the night digging a common grave. We were unable to make it very deep, because the water in the ground soon began to seep in. At the end we were working knee deep in mud.
Bethke, Wessling, and Kosole were kept busy shoring up the sides. The rest of us gathered the corpses that lay about in the area ahead of us, and placed them side by side, in a long row till the grave should be ready. Albert Trosske, our section corporal, removed any identity discs or paybooks that they still had on them.
A few of the dead had already black, putrefied faces—putrefaction was rapid during the wet months. On the other hand they did not stink quite so badly as in summer. Some of them were soaked and sodden with water like sponges. One we found lying flat, spread-eagled on the ground. Only when we took him up did we see that there was practically nothing left of him but the rags of his uniform, he was so pulped. His identity disc was gone too. We only recognised him finally by a patch in his trousers. Lance-Corporal Glaser, it was. He was light to carry, for almost half of him was missing.
Such stray arms, legs or heads as we found we set apart on a waterproof sheet by themselves. "That'll do," said Bethke, when we had brought up Glaser, "we won't get any more in."
We fetched a few sandbags full of chloride of lime. Jupp scattered it about the wide trench with a flat shovel. Max Weil turned up soon after with a few crosses that he had brought from the dump. Then to our astonishment Serjeant-Major Seelig also appeared out of the darkness. As there was no padre handy and both our officers were sick, he had been told off, apparently, to pronounce the prayer for the dead. He was feeling rather sore about it; he could not bear the sight of blood—and besides he was so fat. He was nightblind, too, and could hardly see in the dark. All this together made him so jumpy that he overstepped the edge of the grave and fell in. Tjaden burst out laughing, and called in a subdued voice: "Shovel, boys! Shovel him in!"
Kosole, as it happened, was digging in the trench just at that spot and Seelig landed square on the top of his head—a good two hundredweight of live meat! Kosole swore blue murder. Then he recognised the sergeant-major, but being an old hand—this was 1918—he did not let that deter him. The S.M. picked himself up, saw Kosole in front of him, exploded, and began to abuse him. Kosole yelled back. Bethke, who was also down there, tried to part them. But the sergeant-major spat with rage, and Kosole, justly regarding himself as the aggrieved party, returned as good as he got. Willy now jumped in also to lend Kosole a hand. A terrific uproar arose from the grave.
"Steady," said someone suddenly. Though the voice was quiet, the din ceased immediately. Seelig, puffing and blowing, clambered out of the grave. His uniform was white with the soft chalk, he looked for all the world like a gingerbread baby covered in icing sugar. Kosole and Bethke climbed out likewise.
On top, leaning on his walking-stick, stood Ludwig Breyer. Until now he had been lying out in the open before the dugout, with two greatcoats over him—he was suffering then his first bad attack of dysentery.
"What's the trouble?" he asked. Three men tried to tell him at once. Wearily Ludwig checked them. "Anyway, what does it matter?"
The S.M. insisted that Kosole had struck him on the chest. At this Kosole flared up again.
"Steady," said Ludwig once more. There was silence again. "Have you got all the identity discs, Albert?" he then asked. "Yes," replied Trosske, adding softly, so that Kosole should not hear it: "Schröder's among them."
For a moment each looked at the other. Then Ludwig said: "Ah, then he wasn't taken prisoner? Which is he?"
Albert led him along the line, Broger and I following— Schröder was our schoolfellow. Trosske stopped before a body, the head of which was covered with a sandbag. Breyer stooped. Albert pulled him back. "Don't uncover, Ludwig," he implored. Breyer turned round. "Albert," he said quietly.
Of the upper part of Schröder's body nothing was recognisable. It was as flat as a flounder. The face was like a board in which a black, oblique hole with a ring of teeth marked the mouth. Without a word Breyer covered it over again. "Does he know?" he asked, looking toward where Kosole was digging. Albert shook his head. "See to it that the S.M. clears off," said he, "otherwise there'll be trouble."
Schröder had been Kosole's friend. We had never understood it quite, for Schröder was delicate and frail, a mere child, and the direct opposite of Ferdinand. Yet Ferdinand used to look after him like a mother.
Behind us stood someone puffing. Seelig had followed us and was standing there with staring eyes. "I never saw the like of that before," he stammered. "However did it happen?"
No one answered. Schroder should really have gone home on leave eight days ago. But because Seelig disliked him and Kosole, he bitched it for him. And now Schröder was dead.
We walked off. We could not bear to see Seelig at that moment. Ludwig crawled in under his greatcoats once more. Only Albert remained. Seelig stared at the corpse. The moon came out from behind a cloud and shone down upon it. The fat body stooped forward. The sergeant-major stood there and peered down into the pallid face below, upon which an inconceivable expression of horror was frozen to a stillness that almost screamed.
"Better say the prayer now and get back," said Albert coldly.
The sergeant-major wiped his forehead. "I can't," he murmured.—The horror had caught him. We had all had that experience: for weeks together a man might feel nothing, then suddenly there would come some new, unforeseen thing and it would break him under.—With green face he stumbled off to the dugout.
"He imagined they pelted you with jujubes up here," said Tjaden drily.
The rain fell more heavily. The sergeant-major did not return. At last we fetched Ludwig Breyer from under his overcoats once again. In a quiet voice he repeated a Paternoster.
We passed the dead down. Weil lent a hand below, taking them from us. I noticed that he was trembling. Almost inaudibly he was whispering: "You shall be avenged." Again and again. I looked at him, astonished.
"What's got you?" I asked him. "These aren't the first, you know. You'll have your work cut out avenging them all." Then he said no more.
When we had packed in the first rows, Valentin and Jupp came stumbling up with a stretcher.
"This bloke's alive still," said Jupp, setting down the waterproof.
Kosole gave it a glance. "Not for long, though," said he. "We might wait for him."
The man on the stretcher choked and gasped intermittently. At each breath the blood ran down over his chin.
"Any use carrying him out?" asked Jupp.
"He'd only die just the same," said Albert, pointing to the blood.
We turned him over on his side, and Max Weil attended to him while we went on with our work. Valentin was helping me now. We passed Glaser down. "My God! think of his wife!" murmured Valentin.
"Look out, here comes Schröder," Jupp called to us as he let the waterproof slide.
"Shut your mouth!" hissed Broger.
Kosole still had the body in his arms. "Who?" he asked uncomprehending.
"Schröder," repeated Jupp, supposing Ferdinand knew already.
"Don't be funny, you bloody fool I he was captured," growled Kosole angrily.
"It is, Ferdinand," said Albert Trosske, who was standing near-by.
We held our breath. Kosole gathered up the body and climbed out. He took his torch from his pocket and shone it upon the corpse. He stooped down close over what was left of the face and examined it.
"Thank God, the S.M.'s gone," whispered Karl.
We stood motionless through the next seconds. Kosole straightened himself up. "Give's a shovel," said he sharply. I handed him one. We expected bloody murder. But Kosole merely began to dig. Allowing none to help him he made a grave for Schröder apart. He placed him in it himself. He was too stricken to think of Seelig.
By dawn both graves were finished. The wounded man had died in the meantime, so we put him in with the rest. After treading the ground firm we set up the crosses. With
a copying-pencil Kosole wrote Schröder's name on one that was still blank, and hung a steel helmet on top of it.
Ludwig came once more. We removed our helmets and he repeated a second Paternoster. Albert stood pale beside him. Schröder used to sit with him at school. But Kosole looked terrible. He was quite grey and decayed, and said never a word.
We stood about yet a while and the rain fell steadily. Then the coffee fatigue came and we sat down to eat.
As soon as it was light the sergeant-major came up out of a dugout near-by. We supposed he had been gone long ago. He stank of rum for miles and now only wanted to get back to the rear. Kosole let out a bellow when he saw him. Luckily Willy was by. He sprang at Kosole and held him fast. But it took four of us all our strength to keep him from breaking loose and murdering Seelig. It was a full hour before he had sufficiently recovered his senses to see that he would only make trouble for himself if he went after him. But by Schröder's grave he swore to get even with Seelig.