Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

‘Not that mad,’ said Niggl under his breath, his eyes staring and becoming angry when Süßmann appeared with his black miner’s lamp. Unfortunately, the sapper’s strict military bearing gave him no way in. Niggl told him to inform the lieutenant that the men’s sleep had been interrupted, some of them had been thrown from their beds, there had been instances of grazed skin and a sprained wrist, and their nerves had of course taken a jolt. The bloody thing must have come down right above the casemate. Süßmann uttered soothing words, mainly to the men: the shots had been meant for the B-tower, which had also been hit, and the fact that the concrete had withstood such a heavy strike was the best proof there was of the vaults’ strength. For it had been a new type of gun, also a 42cm – he had no idea how close this improvisation was to the truth. And so the men should not let their rest be disturbed, for goodness’ sake, and should take consolation from that and go back to the casemate and to bed. The depot would issue an extra ration of rum with evening tea because of the shock.

Wanting consolation, the ASC men pushed into the light and listened eagerly. They knew this little man who was rumoured to have died and come back to life. They’d also heard that the lieutenant’s name was Kroysing. In many of their dull minds Süßmann was therefore accorded some of the trust they’d had in Sergeant Kroysing, who had also been quite short and brown-haired. As a result, his encouragement worked. All those patient men really wanted was reassurance, something to soothe their souls and help them come to terms with the situation. Süßmann stood in the midst of his three enemies and glanced fleetingly at their faces. Behind those faces, they were shaking. Oh, he felt exactly how much. Should he ask for the post book now? No, too potent a moment. They could have refused him with good reason. First they needed a chance to have other thoughts. After lunch then. He clicked his heels together, swung round at attention and vanished with Bertin into the endless, dark tunnel. The electric cable had been cut somewhere.

LATE IN THE afternoon, Captain Niggl asked Sergeant Major Feicht to come to his room. It was dark inside; the electricians were still working on the lighting cable. The captain cast a formless shadow on the wall in the dim light from the stearin candle on the table. He was sitting on his bedstead and had been asleep. He planned to spend some time in the open with the entrenching commando that night, but for now he was wearing breeches and grey woollen stockings that his wife had knitted and slippers – black slippers from Weilheim, each with a white Edelweiß embroidered on it. The sergeant major stood to attention in the doorway. In a tired voice, the captain asked him to close the door, come in and sit down on the stool. Sergeant Major Feicht obeyed, giving his superior officer a look of deepest sympathy. He too felt dreadful.

Feicht and Niggl came from the same area. Before the war, Ludwig Feicht, who was a native of Tutzing and married to a local woman, had worked contentedly as a purser on the handsome steamers that plied Lake Starnberg, or Lake Würm as it was also called. When the visitors from north Germany were standing in groups on the deck admiring the beautiful old coppices of trees, the clear water, the silver gulls circling above, Purser Feicht stepped forward in his blue reefer jacket with gold braid and his marvellous peaked cap and explained to the summer holiday-makers in broad but not impenetrable Bavarian that this was the up-and-coming spa resort of Tutzing and that was Bernried, with its little church that was much older than even the most impressive churches in Berlin. He was flattered when the clueless Berliners and Saxons addressed him as ‘Captain’ and asked indescribably stupid questions: was Rose Island over there by Tutzing artificial and had King Ludwig by any chance had a castle on it?

Ludwig Feicht loved his summer life on the long lake, and his broad, red face radiated goodwill. He had two small children in Tutzing, and while he was away his wife Theresa single-handedly ran a grocery shop and delicatessen for the many spa guests who packed the place out. Even now – especially now – the starving Prussians descended on the place to fill their bellies with Bavarian milk, dumplings and smoked meats, leaving their money behind, the new brown or blue 20 Mark notes. And Ludwig Feicht had been very happy with his life. He’d even faced the transfer to Douaumont with a certain composure, believing himself immune to the vicissitudes of fate. But as of that day, as of the two instances of shellfire, that feeling had been abruptly overturned. That the French had fired those two shells at the fort, that they were so bloody expert that they only needed those two: this took his breath away when the gunners from turret B explained it to him. His goal had been to return home in one piece with some tidy savings. Now he wasn’t sure what to think.

‘Feicht,’ the captain said in his new, depressed voice, employing the thick Bavarian dialect of their lakeside homeland, ‘answer me one question – not in your official, military capacity, but as a neighbour who’s in, you know, the same tight spot as me, as a Tutzinger to a Weilheimer, who has a dispute with someone from Nuremberg. Imagine the two of us are in a shooting hut above the Benediktenwand ridge and a nasty Nuremberger is due to turn up early in the morning wanting something from us – a Franconian, a right bastard.’

Feicht sat there squarely on the stool, bent forward, elbows on his knees. This was it. This was why he’d been brought to this evil vaulted place. He’d always made fun of clergymen and churches and pilfered from the steamship company without a second thought. Money was his second favourite thing in the world. But he should have kept his hands off dead men’s belongings. There was something wrong with that. ‘Captain,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I know what this is about.’

Niggl nodded. An intelligent man such as his neighbour would of course understand the ways of the world. Who would have thought that meek little mouse Sergeant Kroysing would have the devil incarnate for a brother. The brother had claws and he dug them in. He pursued his goal with tenacity, and his goal was to destroy.

Yes, exclaimed Feicht, waving his right hand about, which, being a sergeant major who understood what was proper, he’d never have done in a different mood or under other circumstances. Lieutenant Kroysing struck him as a crab that might skewer a pencil someone had put between its claws as a joke. There was only one solution: wave goodbye to the pencil or chuck the crab in boiling water.

‘You see, Feicht, that’s just it. We can’t chuck the crab in boiling water, but perhaps the lanky bastard will fall in by himself when he’s floating about with his mine throwers at the front line. Perhaps we could help him, shine a torch on him when he has us all up at the front and we’re under cover and he’s on the top. Until then, we’ll have to give him the pencil. Have you got the list?’ Feicht said that he had. ‘Do you know where the various things are?’ Without so much as a blush, Feicht considered for a moment, then said, yes, he knew where the things were.

‘What writings there were are still among my paperwork,’ said Niggl. ‘I’ll pull them together for you and leave them packed up here on my bed. Package everything up nicely while we’re gone – everything, old chum! Work out his pay up until the day of his death, not a Pfennig short. Can we produce the paper that the company commander signed when the belongings arrived?’ Feicht nodded. ‘By tonight the package is to be on the table in Lieutenant Kroysing’s room. I’ll answer any questions he may have. We mustn’t leave him any openings, Feicht,’ he said, eyeing his portly subordinate pensively. ‘For the time being, we have the weaker hand. For the time being. Now, be off with you, old chum. Tell Dimpflinger to get me a decent bit of meat, even if it’s from a tin. I want to see this game through. We’ll see who laughs last.’