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

After we have done that about a dozen times I’ve had enough. And Albert groans, ‘Let’s move, otherwise I’ll fall over and drown.’

‘Where did you get it?’ I ask.

‘In the knee, I think.’

‘Can you walk?’

‘I think so —’

‘Right. Let’s go.’

We make it to the ditch by the side of the road and run along, bent double. The gunfire follows us. The road leads to the ammunition dump. If that goes up, nobody will even find one of our buttons afterwards. So we change our plans and set off at an angle across country.

Albert slows down. ‘Run on, I’ll catch you up,’ he says, and throws himself on to the ground.

I pull him up by the arm and give him a shake. ‘Get up, Albert, if you lie down now you’ll never be able to move on again. Come on, I’ll prop you up.’

At last we reach a small dugout. Kropp throws himself down and I bandage him. The wound is just above the knee. Then I look at myself. My trousers have blood on them, and so does my arm. Albert ties his field dressings around the wounds. He is already unable to move his leg, and we are both amazed at how we have managed to get this far at all. It’s only fear that did it: we would still have run for it if our feet had been shot away – we’d have run on the stumps.

I can still crawl a little, and I shout out when an open cart comes past, and we’re picked up. It is full of wounded men. A medical orderly is there and he shoves a tetanus jab [241] tetanus jab – прививка от столбняка into each of us.

At the dressing station we arrange things so that we are put side by side. They give us some thin beef broth, which we treat with contempt, but finish off greedily – we’ve been used to better things recently, but we are hungry all the same.

‘We’ll be heading for home now, Albert,’ I say.

‘With any luck,’ he replies. ‘But I wish I knew exactly what I’ve got.’

The pain gets worse. The bandages are burning like fire. We drink and drink, one mug of water after another.

‘How far above the knee was I hit?’ asks Kropp.

‘A good four inches, Albert,’ I say, though in reality it isn’t much more than an inch.

‘One thing I’ve decided,’ he says after a little while, ‘if they take my leg off, I’ll do myself in [242] I’ll do myself in – Я покончу с собой . I don’t want to go through life as a cripple.’

And so we he there with our thoughts, and wait.

That same evening they take us to the chopping-block. I’m frightened, and try to think quickly what I should do; because everyone knows that the surgeons in these clearing stations are quick to amputate. With the numbers they have to deal with it is simpler than a complicated patch-up job. I remember what happened to Kemmerich. On no account am I going to let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack a couple of skulls to stop them.

Things go well. The doctor prods around in the wound until I am on the point of passing out. ‘Don’t make such a fuss,’ he snaps, and carries on digging about. His instruments gleam under the bright light like malevolent animals. The pain is unbearable. Two orderlies hold my arms tight, but I get one free and am just about to swing out and get the surgeon in the face when he notices and jumps away. ‘Chloroform [243] chloroform – хлороформировать, вводить в состояние наркотического сна при помощи хлороформа him,’ he shouts furiously.

That makes me calm down. ‘I beg your pardon, doctor, I’ll keep quiet, but please don’t chloroform me.’

‘Well, well,’ he mutters, and picks up his instruments again. He’s blond, thirty at the most, with fraternity duelling scars on his face and repulsive gold-rimmed glasses. I can see that he’s messing about with me now, because he is just poking around in the wound and peering at me over his glasses from time to time. I squeeze the hand-grips as tightly as I can but I’d rather die than let him hear another peep out of me.

He has fished out a sliver of metal and chucks it across to me. He seems to be satisfied with my behaviour, because he now puts my leg carefully in splints and tells me, ‘It’s off home tomorrow for you.’ Then they put the leg in plaster. When I am back with Kropp I tell him that it looks as if there will be a hospital train tomorrow.

‘We’ll have to have a word with the medical duty sergeant so that we can stay together, Albert.’

With a few well chosen words I manage to slip the sergeant a couple of my high quality cigars. He sniffs one and asks, ‘Got any more of these?’

‘A good handful of them,’ I tell him, ‘and my pal over there —’ pointing at Kropp – ‘has some as well. We would be very pleased to pass them over to you tomorrow – out of the window of the hospital train.’

He cottons on, of course, has another sniff, and says, ‘Done.’

We don’t get a moment’s sleep during the night. Seven men die in our room. One of them sings snatches of hymns in a high, strained tenor for an hour until it gives way to the death rattle. Another gets out of bed and crawls to the window. He is found lying in front of it, as if he wanted to look out for the last time.

We are lying on our stretchers at the station. We are waiting for the train. It’s raining and the station hasn’t any roof. Our blankets are thin. We’ve already been waiting for two hours.

The sergeant looks after us like a mother. Although I’m feeling very ill I don’t stop concentrating on our plan. I let him see the packet of cigars as if by accident, and give him one as an advance payment; for that the sergeant gets a tarpaulin and puts it over us.

‘Bloody hell, Albert,’ I remind him, ‘that four-poster, and the cat…’

‘And the armchairs,’ he adds.

Yes, the red plush armchairs. We sat on those chairs in the evenings like kings, and we had the bright idea of renting them out afterwards by the hour. One hour, one cigarette. We’d have had a good life and a good business.

‘Albert —’ something else occurs to me – ‘what about those sacks of food?’

We become melancholy. We could have done with those things. If the train were to go a day later, I’m sure Kat would have found us and brought us our gear.

It’s a bloody nuisance. We’ve got gruel in our bellies, thin clearing-station grub, and in those sacks of ours there are tins of ham. But we are so weak that we can’t get worked up about it.

The stretchers are soaking wet when the train arrives later that morning. The sergeant arranges for us to be in the same carriage. There are lots of Red Cross nurses. Kropp is put into a lower berth. They lift me out to get into the bed above him.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ I blurt out, suddenly.

‘What’s the matter?’ asks the nurse.

I have another look at the bed. It has been made up with snowy white linen, unimaginably clean linen with the creases where it has been ironed. But my shirt hasn’t been washed for six weeks and it’s filthy.

‘Can’t you manage to get in by yourself?’ asks the nurse anxiously.

‘I can manage that,’ I say, sweating, ‘but please can’t you take those bedclothes away first.’

‘Whatever for?’

I feel as filthy as a pig. And I’m supposed to get in to a bed like that? ‘It’ll get —’ I pause.

‘– a bit dirty?’ she asks, encouragingly. ‘That won’t hurt, we’ll just wash it again afterwards.’

‘No, it’s not just that —’ I say in confusion. This sudden confrontation with the civilized world is too much for me.

‘If you can be out there in the trenches, surely we can wash a bed sheet or two?’ she goes on.