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

‘The state, the state —’ Tjaden snaps his fingers dismissively – ‘military police, ordinary police, taxes – that’s your state. If you want anything to do with that lot, thanks very much, but leave me out of it.’

‘That’s true,’ says Kat, ‘you’ve got something right for once, Tjaden; there’s a big difference between a homeland and a state.’ ‘But they do go together,’ says Kropp after a moment’s thought. ‘You can’t have a homeland without the state.’

‘Right, but just think for a minute – we are almost all ordinary people, aren’t we? And in France the majority are workers, too, or tradesmen or clerks. Why on earth should a French locksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it’s just the governments. I’d never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and most of the Frenchmen won’t have seen one of us. Nobody asked them any more than they did us.’

‘So why is there a war at all?’ asks Tjaden.

Kat shrugs. ‘There must be some people who find the war worthwhile.’

‘Well I’m not one of them,’ grins Tjaden.

‘No, and nor is anybody else here.’

‘So who, then?’ persists Tjaden. ‘It’s no use to the Kaiser. He’s got everything he needs anyway.’

‘No, you can’t say that,’ counters Kat, ‘up to now he hadn’t had a war. And all top-grade emperors need at least one war, otherwise they don’t get famous. Have a look in your school history books.’ ‘Generals get famous because of wars, too,’ says Detering.

‘More famous than emperors,’ agrees Kat.

‘And I bet there are other people behind it all who are making a profit out of the war,’ grumbles Detering.

‘I think it’s more a kind of fever,’ says Albert. ‘Nobody really wants it, but all of a sudden, there it is. We didn’t want the war, they say the same thing on the other side – and in spite of that, half the world is at it hammer and tongs [224] hammer and tongs – изо всей силы .’

‘They tell more lies on the other side than our lot do, though,’ I put in. ‘What about those leaflets the POWs had on them, where they said that we eat Belgian babies? People who write things like that ought to be strung up. They’re the real villains.’

Muller gets up. ‘Anyway, it’s better that war is here than in Germany. Just have a look at no man’s land.’

Tjaden voices his full agreement. ‘That’s true. But it would be better if there were no war at all.’

He walks off, proud to have got the last word over us high-school recruits for once. And in fact his views are typical enough out here, you meet them time and again, and there is no real argument that you can put up against them, because they override any understanding of wider issues. The feelings of nationalism that the ordinary soldier has are expressed in the fact that he is out here. But it doesn’t go any further; all his other judgements are practical ones and made from his own point of view.

Albert lies down on the grass in annoyance. ‘It’s better not to talk about the whole damn thing.’

‘Doesn’t change anything, anyway,’ agrees Kat.

On top of it all [225] on top of it all – в довершение всего , we have to hand in nearly all the new things that we were issued, and we get our old gear back. The good quality stuff was only for the troop inspection.

Instead of going to Russia we go up the line again. On the way we pass through what is left of a wood, with half-blasted tree-trunks [226] half-blasted tree-trunks – перебитые, искореженные стволы деревьев and the ground looking as if it had been ploughed up. There are some massive craters. ‘Christ, this place took a pounding,’ I say to Kat.

‘Mortar fire [227] mortar fire – миномет ,’ he replies, and then points upwards.

Dead men are hanging in the trees. In one of them a naked soldier is squatting in the branches; his helmet is still on his head, but otherwise he has nothing on. There is only the top half of him up there, a head and body with the legs missing.

‘What happened there?’ I ask.

‘Blown out of his uniform [228] blown out of his uniform – его вышибло из одежды ,’ grunts Tjaden.

‘It’s funny,’ says Kat, ‘but we’ve seen that a few times. When a trench mortar goes off you actually do get blown out of your clothes. It’s the blast that does it.’

I look around. It really is true. In some trees there are just bits of uniform, others have a bit of bloody pulp that was once a human limb sticking to them. There is one body which only has a scrap of underpants on one leg and the tunic collar around the neck. Otherwise it is naked. The uniform is hanging in the nearby trees. Both arms are missing from the body, as if they have been wrenched out of their sockets. I come across one of them in the undergrowth twenty paces away.

The dead man is lying on his face. The earth is black from the blood underneath the arm sockets. The ground is scuffed by his feet, as though he went on kicking for a while.

‘It’s no joke, Kat,’ I say.

‘Nor is a bit of shrapnel in the guts,’ he says with a shrug.

‘The main thing is not to let it all get to you,’ adds Tjaden.

All this can’t have happened too long ago, because the blood is still fresh. Since all the soldiers we find are dead we don’t hang about there, but just report the business at the next dressing station. After all, there’s no reason why we should do the donkey work for the stretcher-bearers.

A patrol has to be sent out to establish how many of the enemy positions are still manned. Because I’ve had leave, I still feel a bit awkward as far as the others are concerned, and for that reason I volunteer to join it. We agree on a plan of action; crawl through the wire, and then separate, so that we can move forward independently. After a while I find a shallow crater and slip into it. I take a look at things from there.

The area is being covered by moderate machine-gun fire. They are sweeping it from all sides, and the fire is not very heavy, but still enough for you to make sure you keep your head well down.

A Verey light goes up. The terrain looks barren in the pale glow. By contrast, it seems so much darker when the night closes in again. They told us back in the trenches that there are supposed to be black soldiers in the opposite trenches. That’s bad, because they are hard to see, and besides, they are very good at reconnaissance patrols [229] reconnaissance patrols – патрулирование с ведением воздушной разведки . Curiously enough, they can often be just plain careless. Both Kat and Kropp have been on patrols where they have shot black soldiers out on counter-reconnaissance [230] counter-reconnaissance – контрразведка who were so keen on cigarettes that they were smoking as they moved along. Ah Kat and Albert had to do was to get a glowing tip in their sights and aim at that.

A small shell whistles down and strikes close to where I am. I hadn’t heard it coining and it gives me a real fright. At that moment I’m overcome by mindless panic. I’m out here on my own in the dark and night is helpless – for I know two eyes have already been watching me for ages from another shell hole and there is a hand-grenade just waiting to blow me to bits. I try to pull myself together. This isn’t my first patrol and it isn’t even a particularly dangerous one. But it is the first one I’ve been on since I was on leave, and on top of that the terrain is still pretty unfamiliar to me.

I tell myself firmly that I am getting worked up for nothing, that there is probably no one watching for me in the dark because if there were they wouldn’t be firing so low.