Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

Bertin, with his rifle, was still between the tracks deep in thought – not so far away that he couldn’t hear, but too distracted to be alarmed. He was full of self-pity in that moment. If he’d had any sense, he have been like the other grown-ups in the company and wouldn’t have trusted the sergeant major back in the barracks yard in Küstrin. He’d have let himself be transferred to the east rather than insisting on making a voluntary pilgrimage west. That way he’d have remained the decent lad he used to be and he’d have been able to do his duty just as well in the east. But he’d been afraid of the east, hadn’t he? In the east there was the threat of lice, snow and cold, uncivilised towns, horribly degraded roads, and in the towns lots of Jews – Eastern European Jews with nasty habits, steeped in an embarrassing, over-the-top kind of Judaism designed to make him, Bertin, feel as uncomfortable as possible. He’d been honest enough to admit that to himself and he admitted it now too. He just felt the punishment was a bit harsh for such a small misdemeanour. Why should a Jew not be able to admit that he didn’t like certain other Jews, but did very much like the Prussian military: its discipline and order, its spruceness and drills, its warrior dress and spirit, the military might of its proud traditions and its invincible strike power? Hadn’t he been brought up to feel like that?

And now, after two years of service, here he stood a miserable thief of bread for the hungry. In such circumstances a Berliner would joke that something was a bit fishy. A lot of things had been revealed as a hoax in the last two years, for example the idea that it was sweet and honourable to die for the Fatherland. Well no, actually, it was always nasty and awful to sacrifice a young life before it had come to anything. But sometimes, by God, it was necessary. You couldn’t just leave women, children and old men to be overrun by brown barbarian hordes, such as the Mongols and Tartars who had repeatedly attacked the his Silesian homeland. Well, Mr Bertin , he told himself, you’ve been a sheep with your Prussian patriotism, you’ve behaved like a wee laddie going off on an adventure and failed to noticed that you were in fact in the service – and in the noose – of the enemy of all people: naked force, the adversary incarnate . It was a bit late to be discovering this. In the meantime, he’d sunk to the level of the plundering Bashkir nomads held up in horror in the history books of his childhood. For they had only plundered food from the Silesian peasants and townspeople because they were hungry and needed to put food on their own tables. Bertin Bashkir – what a slap in the face!

And then he heard the ringing. He jolted awake and was back in the present. Pushed the shed door open, flashed his torch around: no one there. Grabbed the receiver from its cradle and listened: air raid alarm, pass it on! A sudden, glaring memory of the five wagons of explosives. Fifty living men dependent on his watchfulness. Get a move on!

Bertin bounded like a hare over the rails and sleepers. Shoving his gun aside, he stormed into the railwaymen’s barracks. ‘Get out! Air raid alarm!’ He left the door open so the air would help to rouse the sleeping men and rushed out again to wake his comrades. He had no fear for himself. He was alive with sensations, engulfed in the excitement of this extraordinary night. He stood in the doorway, heard Sergeant Barkopp curse the draught and banged on the floorboards with the butt of his musket, cruelly driving out the last vestiges of sleep: there was a reason why a certain private had once blissfully slept through an air raid alarm. Back then, there had been 150m between the men and the ammunition; now there were just 30m.

He looked to the sky and listened. A very faint singing could be heard, unmistakable and evil. A searchlight had already swung upwards from the Sivry area, its chameleon tongue, broader at the top, licking for insects. A second joined it, apparently from behind the main railway station at Vilosnes, then a third from Dannevoux. And then the anti-aircraft guns started yelping. They boomed out from behind the hill on the other side of the railway, and heavy machine gun fire clattered from the side of the hill. Shafts of light swung across the sky. Dark puffs of red shrapnel burst around the plane and bullets ripped towards it. Watch out, Froggie! We’ll punch holes in your wings or arms, engine or heart, petrol tank or lungs – it’s all one to us. You must be brought down before those terrible Easter eggs of yours can be sent crashing to earth. A flock of inadequately clothed ASC men trotted past in the moonlight towards the dark hollows of the dugouts. Most of them tried to push through to the back where it was safest, but the railwaymen were already there, smoking cigarettes. The ASC men had to take cover further forwards.

One man stayed outside: Bertin. He had to stay and see what happened. Sergeant Barkopp barked at him good-naturedly to come inside as it was about to rain. Bertin, shading the visor of his cap with hand, stayed where he was, saying there was time yet. Where was the Frenchman? Had he cleared off to Stenay, where the crown prince was supposed to have his headquarters? Woe betide you, Frenchie, if you take out a certain someone before he has arranged my transfer to the Lychow divison court martial.

One thousand two hundred metres up in the air, Jean-François Rouard leant out of the cockpit and peered down with his night binoculars. The landscape beneath him was completely different from in daytime. The silvery light of the moon is a poetic lie. Beneath him lay a shrouded, grey expanse, and he could barely make out the course of the Meuse. He shouldn’t have let himself in for a bombing raid so soon. On the other hand, orders were orders and he had to stop taking childish photographs sometime and get down to the real business. There were four pointed bombs hanging from the belly of his plane. They looked like sleeping bats hanging head downwards from the eaves of a barn. He couldn’t wait to get rid of them. God in heaven, where was that bend in the Meuse and the target valley with the railway tracks? He flashed his torch over his time sheet, map and watch: still straight on. He didn’t hear the shrapnel bursting in the noise of the engine, but he saw it when he leant out of the cockpit again searching for some sign that would bring this paralysing uncertainty to an end – the hot, wild confusion of his first night-time bombing raid. If the time sheet was right, they should fly on for two seconds and then downwards to get a better aim, and then a jerk of the lever, and to hell with the mess he’d be creating. Life was one big mess, you just had to accept that and make sure you hit the target. Perhaps he’d get hit himself. There, a light ahead on the left, a bright speck on the ground. Probably someone stumbling along between the tracks. He tapped the pilot’s left upper arm, and he changed course almost imperceptibly.

Below a witches’ Sabbath had reached its peak. Guns crashed. Shells howled up and burst. Machine guns rattled out their violent worst. Searchlights groped around. The hum of the plane’s engine and propeller grew more distinct. Bertin was trembling with excitement. He was pressed into the entrance of the dugout, all his senses alert. The mad frenzy of battle tearing the night to shreds engulfed his soul. Madness gripped him. A few hours earlier he’d been attacking violence up at the hospital and now he was in raptures over it. How is that possible ? he wondered. Could the two go together? Didn’t you need to be a sergeant major to tremble with bliss, as he was now doing, at the volley of explosions and the air man up there, chasing his target undeterred, which included Bertin? Have I become a savage as well as a thief? he wondered. Did I even need to become one? Haven’t I always been one? Didn’t I bully my little brother, just as Glinsky bullied me. Didn’t I throw a weaker and worthier person than myself to the ground and rape them, just as Jansch did with me? I mean my wife. I mean Lenore .