Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

The Swedish journalist standing next to the French observer turned pale and said thank you very much. Amazingly artful shooting, but he’d rather not see any more. The men from Hessen were now speeding down the railway track at the double, the lieutenant at the front. They’d seen at once that the young Bavarian was no longer used to the fray or he would have thrown himself behind the rails immediately after the first explosion. You didn’t mess with crumps. They crouched round Kroysing’s lying body where blood was pooling. The junior MO Trichauer bent carefully over him. Nothing to be done. A morphine injection was all he could offer him now. The shell splinters had hacked through his shoulder blade and arm joint like a meat cleaver, severing his arteries and probably the lobe of his lung as well. There was no point in bringing him round. As astonished sappers and ASC men appeared above, asking why the Frogs were shooting at this unusual hour, and the group below gestured frantically for them to come down, Lieutenant Mahnitz looked with a sick heart on the creature laid out before him, with whom he’d been having such an enjoyable conversation less than five minutes before and who now began to groan like a suffocating animal. Half lying and propped up on his elbow, speaking to himself but also loud enough for his band of speechless, dirty men to hear, Mahnitz said: ‘I’d just like to know when this bloody shit will be over.’

THE NEXT DAY, as the ASC men approached the front line, taking the route round the Meuse hills this time, there was talk about how lucky they’d been to be at home the day before, because there had been an armed attacked in this area and a couple of men had been seriously wounded and transported to Billy. Bertin was sceptical about these excitable rumours; he was already looking forward to seeing Kroysing. Would he come today or later? Was he already stuck down below at the gun position? In contrast to the day before, that day’s division of labour brought Bertin and his spade near to two Bavarians who were hacking away at the clay by the new track to make it easier to drag the track later.

‘Where’s your Sergeant Kroysing?’ Bertin asked the nearest one, a freckly red head with a particularly large Adam’s apple.

Without lifting his head, the Bavarian asked Bertin what he wanted with Kroysing. Bertin said he didn’t want anything in particular; he’d just found Kroysing appealing.

‘Well, lad,’ the Bavarian said, battering away at a lump of clay, ‘our Sergeant Kroysing won’t be appealing to anyone ever again.’

At first Bertin didn’t understand. His confusion lasted so long that the Bavarian lost his temper and asked him if his ears were blocked. Kroysing had stopped one, he said. He was a goner. He’d bled like a stuck pig in the truck that took him to the military hospital at Billy. Bertin didn’t reply. He stood clutching his spade. The colour drained from his face and he cleared his throat. Strange, strange. And here he was standing about stupidly, not screaming, not lashing out… That’s war for you. Nowt you can do about, lad . Had the Bavarian said that? He had. He was spitting it out, making his voice clear. It had happened the morning before. The explosion had smashed up Kroysing’s left shoulder. You today, me tomorrow. They wouldn’t be seeing Kroysing again.

They worked on. ‘Did you know Sergeant Kroysing from before?’ the Bavarian asked after a pause, looking up, his face dripping with sweat. Bertin said that he had known Kroysing before, that he had been a friend of his and that if there were more like him in the army, the world would be a better place. Yes, the Bavarian replied, blue eyes solemn in his farmer’s face. ‘You’re right there, lad. You won’t find another sergeant like him however hard you look. Even if some people are pleased that he’s out of the picture after yesterday afternoon…’ With that he drew his face down into his open collar as if he’d said too much. Bertin told him he could speak freely to him, that he knew what was what. But the Bavarian demurred. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, turning away.

But during the break the Bavarian appeared again in the company of a smaller, younger ASC man with a thin face and black, almost startled eyes. Both had their tunics open and their caps cocked over one ear. Casually and seemingly innocently, they came either side of Bertin, making it look like they were three ASC men strolling into the shade, bunking off in the hope of a nap. Between the bushy, truncated tree stumps, the remnant of a heavy shell or mine, blown off during the detonation, stuck in the soil like a small table. Its plate-like surface faced skywards, balanced on a steel leg as broad as a hand and thick as a finger. Bugger me ! thought Bertin. This was their world – a world where men like Kroysing bit the dust.

This man here, the Bavarian told Bertin, was Kroysing’s buddy. He had helped to cut his tunic off his body when he was being bandaged up. Something had fallen out from the bloody tatters that no one in their detachment wanted to keep. If Bertin wanted it, he could have it. It was a letter. Bertin said he would gladly take it. He was oddly moved by this bold manifestation of the will of the dead, or almost dead. Gingerly, the Bavarian ASC man handed him a swollen rectangle of brownish red material. It was almost still sticky and looked like a thin bar of chocolate. On it shimmered fudged, blue-black writing. Bertin turned pale, but he took this last greeting and commission and put it in the side pocket of his haversack. When he slid the solid bag of blue-grey linen back over his hips, it seemed to have got heavier. He felt a certain chill, a light shudder, run through his body. He thought he’d found a friend and now he had a commission to fulfil that was both unclear and full of potential complications. Poor little Kroysing! The grey cat suddenly appeared in front of Bertin like a root come to life, gazing at him insolently with her bottle-green eyes, and he was suddenly overcome with fury. Cursing, he hurled the nearest shell splinter at her, missed her of course and saw the Bavarian looking at him in astonishment. She was alive. A creature like that was still alive.

EARLY IN THE afternoon, a man stood doubtfully in front of the company orderly room. Anyone not ordered to present himself there, usually saved himself the trouble, as things only ever went well for Glinsky’s favourites; decent men gave the place a wide berth. Nonetheless, Bertin from the ASC stood before the tar paper-covered door, crooked his finger, knocked and stepped inside, assuming the prescribed posture. It was clear from the rigid expression on his face and and the little crease above the bridge of his glasses that he had something on his mind. But with his officer’s stripes on his Litevka, a cigar between his thick lips and a dead look in his protruding eyes, Herr Glinsky didn’t allow such things to trouble him and hadn’t for some time. He’d spent too long in civilian life pandering to the emotions of those he insured in order to make a living as an insurance broker. Now there was a war. The state was looking after him. It was payback time, and he took his dues. He had never realised (though Frau Glinsky had) how much it had cost him to become that unctuous individual each day. Life now was therefore all the sweeter…

Private Bertin: that was the one with the water pipe who shaved his beard off. For the moment, Glinsky concentrated on the latter description, though the former would certainly come up during their conversation. In the hot and somewhat musty air of the orderly room, he asked: ‘What on Earth does that soldier with the shaved off beard want?’

The soldier with the shaved-off beard asked for a leave pass to go to Billy and return after the curfew. The connection was unreliable, and so he might have to come back in the evening.