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

I look at her. She looks crisply turned out and young, well scrubbed and genteel, like everything else on this train; it’s hard to believe that it isn’t intended for officers only, and it makes you feel uncomfortable, and even a bit threatened.

But the wretched woman behaves like a member of the Inquisition and forces me to say it out loud. ‘It’s just —’ and I stop again; surely she must know what I mean?

‘What else is wrong?’

And in the end I positively shout out, ‘It’s because of the Нее!’

She laughs. ‘Well, they have to have a good time occasionally, too.’

So then I don’t care any more. I scramble into bed and get under the covers.

I feel a hand on the bed-cover. The sergeant. He clears off with the cigars.

An hour later we notice that the train is moving.

I wake up in the night. Kropp is restless, too. The train is rolling quietly over the rails. It is still all too much to take in: a bed, a train, going home.

I whisper, ‘Albert?’

‘Yes

‘Any idea where the lavatory is?’

‘I think it’s the door over there on the right.’

‘I’ll have a look.’

It’s dark, I grope for the edge of the bed so that I can slide down carefully. But I miss my footing and slip, the plaster-cast doesn’t give me any support and with a crash I’m lying on the floor.

‘Damn!’ I say.

‘Did you hit anything?’ asks Kropp.

‘I should think you could have heard that,’ I grumble, ‘my head…’

At the back of the carriage a door opens. The nurse comes in with a lamp and sees me.

‘He fell out of bed —’

She takes my pulse and feels my forehead. ‘But you don’t seem to be feverish…’

‘No —’ I admit.

‘Were you dreaming?’

‘Something like that,’ I reply, avoiding the issue. Here we go again with the questions. She looks at me with her clear eyes and she is so clean and delightful that it is even more difficult for me to tell her what I need.

I’m helped back up into bed. That’s good. When she has gone I shall have to have another try at getting down. If she were an old woman it would be easier to say what the matter is, but she is so young, twenty-five at the most, and it’s no good – I can’t tell her.

Then Albert comes to the rescue; he’s not embarrassed and anyway, he isn’t the one with the problem. He calls out to the nurse. ‘Nurse, he wanted…’ but even Albert doesn’t know how to put it properly and decently. Out at the front you can express it with a single verb, but here, to a lady like this… And then suddenly he remembers his schooldays, and he continues smoothly, ‘He wanted to leave the room, nurse.’

‘Oh, I see,’ says the nurse, ‘but he doesn’t have to get out of bed for that, with a leg in plaster.’ And she turns to me and asks, ‘What is it that you need, then?’

I am absolutely mortified by this new twist, because I haven’t the slightest idea what the technical terms are for these functions. The nurse helps me out.

‘A big job or a little one?’

Oh my God! I’m sweating like a pig and answer in embarrassment, ‘Well, just a little one…’

Anyway, it does the trick.

I get a bottle. A few hours later I’m no longer the only one, and by morning we’re all used to it and ask for what we want without a second thought.

The train goes slowly. From time to time it stops, so that the dead can be taken off. It stops a lot.

Albert is feverish. I’m feeling wretched because of the pain, but what is worse is the fact that there are probably lice underneath the plaster cast. It itches horribly and I can’t scratch it.

We doze through the days. The countryside rolls quietly past the windows. On the third night we reach Herbesthal, on the German border. The nurse tells me that Albert is going to be taken off at the next stop because of his fever. ‘How far is the train going?’ I ask.

‘To Cologne [244] Cologne – Кёльн (город в Германии) .’

‘Albert,’ I say, ‘we’ll stay together, you wait.’

The next time the nurse does her rounds I hold my breath so that my face swells and goes red. She stops. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘Yes,’ I groan, ‘it came on suddenly.’

She gives me a thermometer and moves on. I wouldn’t be one of Kat’s apprentices if I didn’t know what to do. Army-issue thermometers are no match for old soldiers. All you have to do is get the mercury to go up, and then it will stay where it is in the thin tubing and not go down again.

I stick the thermometer under my arm, pointing downwards, and keep pressing against the bulb with my forefinger. Then I shake it up. That way I get it to over 37,9° Fahrenheit. That isn’t enough, though. A match held judiciously near the bulb brings it up to 38,7°.

When the nurse comes back I gasp out, then make my breathing shallow and irregular, goggle at her with eyes that are a bit staring, fidget restlessly and whisper, ‘I can’t stand it any more…’

She jots my name down on a card. I’m quite sure that they won’t open up my plaster-cast unnecessarily.

Albert and I are taken off the train together.

We are in bed in a Catholic infirmary [245] Catholic infirmary – католический лазарет , in the same ward. This is a piece of luck, because the Catholic hospitals are known for good treatment and good food. This military hospital is full up with men from our train-load, and there are plenty of serious cases amongst them. We are not taken in for examination today, because there aren’t enough doctors. Flat hospital trolleys with rubber wheels are constantly being moved along the corridor, and there is always somebody stretched out on them. A bloody awful position to be – stretched out like that – it’s only bearable when you’re asleep.

We have a very disturbed night. Nobody can sleep. We doze off a bit towards morning. I wake up again when it gets light. The doors are open and I can hear voices coming from the corridor. The others wake up. One of them, who has already been in for a few days, tells us what is going on. ‘Up here the sisters say prayers in the corridor every morning. They call it their morning devotions. They open the doors so that you can get your share of benefit from it.’

I’m sure they mean well, but our bones and our heads are aching.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ I say, ‘when we’ve only just got to sleep.’

‘The less serious cases are up here, that’s why they do it,’ he replies.

Albert groans.

I get angry and shout, ‘Be quiet out there!’

A minute later a nurse appears. In her black-and-white habit she looks like a pretty tea-cosy. Someone says, ‘Please shut the door, Sister.’

‘We’re having prayers, that’s why the door is open,’ she replies.

‘But we want to sleep —’

‘Prayers are better than sleep.’ She stands there and smiles in all innocence. ‘And besides, it is already seven o’clock.’

Albert groans again.

‘Shut the door,’ I snap.

She is quite at a loss, apparently unable to understand such an attitude. ‘But we are praying for you as well.’

‘Makes no difference. Shut the door!’

She disappears, leaving the door open. The litany starts up again. I’m now furious, and shout, ‘I’m going to count to three. If it’s not quiet by then, I’ll let fly.’

‘Me too,’ adds someone else.

I count to five. Then I take a bottle, aim, and throw it through the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousand pieces. The prayers stop. A whole swarm of nurses come in and make reproachful noises.

‘Shut that door!’ we scream.

They withdraw. The little one who came in before is the last to leave. ‘Heathens,’ she twitters. But she does close the door.