Эрих Ремарк - All Quiet on the Western Front / На Западном фронте без перемен. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The steps come closer, right past us. We see a naked soldier wearing boots, just like us, galloping along with a parcel under his arm. It is Tjaden, going full steam ahead. He is already out of sight.

We laugh. He’ll curse us tomorrow.

We make it unnoticed back to our straw mattresses.

I’m called to the orderly room. The company commander gives me a leave pass and a travel pass [182] leave pass and travel pass – отпускное свидетельство и проездной билет and tells me to have a good journey. I have a look to see how much leave I’ve been given. Seventeen days – fourteen days’ leave and three for travelling. It isn’t enough, and I ask whether I can have five days’ travel time. Bertinck points to the leave pass and only then do I notice that I don’t have to come straight back to the front. When my leave period is up I have to report to a camp on the moors for a training course.

The others are envious. Kat gives me the sound advice that I ought to try and get a cushy job. ‘Play your cards right [183] play your cards right – действовать умело, правильно разыграть свои карты and you could stay there for the duration.’

As far as I’m concerned it would have been better to get leave in a week’s time, because that’s how long we are staying here, and it is good here —

Of course I have to stand drinks all round [184] stand drinks all round (прост.) – проставиться in the canteen. We are all a bit drunk and I get melancholy; I’ll be away for six weeks, and of course it is a great stroke of luck for me, but what will it be like when I come back? Will they all still be here? Haie and Kemmerich have gone already – who’s going to be next?

We have our drinks and I look at them all one after the other. Albert is sitting next to me and smoking, he is cheerful, we have always been together; Kat is perched opposite him, Kat with his rounded shoulders, broad fingers and calm voice; Muller with his buck teeth and braying laugh; Tjaden with his mousey eyes; Leer, who has grown a beard and looks as if he’s forty.

Thick smoke hovers over our heads. Where would the soldier be without tobacco? The canteen is a place of refuge, and beer is more than a drink, it is a sign that here you can stretch your limbs out without danger. And we do – our legs are stretched out before us, and we spit, companionably and vigorously. What an impression all this makes on you when you know you are going on leave the next day!

That night we go over to the other side of the canal again. I am almost afraid to tell the slim dark girl that I am going on leave and that, when I come back, we shall certainly be somewhere further on – so that we shan’t see each other again. But she just nods and doesn’t seem to react too much. I don’t understand properly at first, but then I get it. Leer is right. If I’d been sent to the front, then it would have been pauvre garcon again, but going on leave – they don’t want to know about that, it isn’t as interesting. Well, she can go to hell with her whispering and her words. You believe in a miracle, but really it just comes down to loaves of bread.

After I’ve been deloused the following morning I march off to the field rail-head. Albert and Kat come with me. When we get to the train stop we hear that it will be a few hours before I can leave. The other two have to go back because they are on duty. We say goodbye.

‘Look after yourself, Kat; look after yourself, Albert.’

They leave, waving a couple of times. Their figures get smaller. I know every step, every move they make, I would be able to recognize them miles away. Then they have gone.

I sit down on my pack and wait.

Suddenly I am full of a raging impatience to get away from here.

I bed down on any number of stations; I queue up at any number of canteens; I squat on any number of wooden train seats – but then the scenery outside becomes disturbing, mysterious and familiar. It sails past the window as evening falls, with villages in which thatched roofs have been pulled down like caps over whitewashed, half-timbered buildings, with wheatfields shimmering like mother-of-pearl in the slanting rays of the sun, with orchards and barns and old lime trees.

The names of the stations take on a familiarity which makes my heart beat faster. The train puffs and puffs, I stand by the window and hold on to the wooden frame. These names mark out the boundaries of my youth.

Level meadows, fields, farmyards; a lonely team of horses [185] team of horses – упряжка лошадей moves against the sky along a path parallel to the horizon. A level-crossing barrier [186] level-crossing barrier – шлагбаум with farm labourers waiting in front of it, girls waving, children playing on the embankment, tracks that lead off into the countryside, smooth pathways and no guns.

It is evening now, and if the train were not still puffing onwards, I should scream. The plain spreads out broadly, and in the distance the pale blue silhouette of the hills comes into sight. I can make out the lines of Dolbenberg Hill, it’s easy to recognize the jagged hilltop, which breaks off abruptly behind the crest of the trees. Behind that we’ll get to the town.

But now the red-gold sunlight floods across the world and blurs it all, the train rattles round one bend and then another; and in that light stands the long row of poplars, unreal, distorted and dark, one behind the other and far away, made out of shadow, light and longing.

Slowly the field rolls away past us, and the poplars with it. The train swings round them, narrowing the spaces between them until they become a block, and for a moment I can only see one single tree. Then the others emerge again from behind the first one, and they stay there for a long time, silhouetted and lonely against the sky, until they are hidden from sight by the first houses.

A level-crossing. I am standing at the window, unable to tear myself away. The others are already gathering their things together, ready to get off. I say the name of the street to myself as we cross it – Bremen Street – Bremen Street —

There are cyclists, cars, people down there, a grey street and a grey underpass – it embraces me as if it were my mother.

Then the train stops and we are in the station, with all its noise, shouts and signboards. I heave my pack on to my shoulders and do up the strap, get hold of my rifle and stumble down the steps of the train.

On the platform I glance around, but I don’t recognize any of the people as they hurry about. A Red Cross [187] Red Cross – Красный Крест (гуманитарная организация) nurse offers me something to drink. I turn away, because she smiles at me so inanely, so full of her own importance: Look at me, everybody, I’m giving a soldier a cup of coffee. She even addresses me as her ‘comrade’ – and that really is the limit.

Outside the station the river is rushing along beside the street, hissing white over the weir by the mill bridge [188] hissing white over the weir by the mill bridge – с шипением вырывается из шлюза мельничного моста . The old square watch-tower is just there, with the huge, richly coloured lime tree in front of it, and the evening behind it.

We often used to sit here – how long ago that was – and we would walk across the bridge and breathe in the cool, stagnant smell of the water as it backed up; we leaned out over the calm water of the river on this side of the weir, where green weeds and algae clung to the buttresses; and on hot days we enjoyed the spray on the far side of the weir as we chatted about our teachers.