Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

‘Very good, Dillinger,’ said the captain. ‘Let me know when you’ve sorted it out.’

When Private Bertin heard about the Bavarian dead and wounded, he went slowly pale under his tan both from the shock and on Lieutenant Kroysing’s account.

It was now September, and this part of the front had never been so quiet. There were good reasons for the Germans not to attack, but the French weren’t budging either, and that gave pause. It was a magical September. In the unspoilt ancient woodland, some 60m wide, small yellow leaves flickered in the burnished light. The longer nights were perfect for a game of skat. The two genial Badeners and Bertin took turns on the switchboard. Friedrich Strumpf, park keeper at Schwetzingen, was convinced he’d seen grey feral cats, and so he often took his infantry rifle out at noon, hoping to get a catskin for his rheumatism. He always came back grumbling, down two cartridges and with no catskin. The little minxes just wouldn’t stand still, he said. Meanwhile, the rear part of the valley was being filled with wood stacks of various sizes. The rainy season was approaching, and the construction troops and sappers were getting ready to raise the narrow-gauge railway platforms.

Almost every morning or afternoon, Bertin wandered over to the field howitzer emplacement to get the post, choosing a time when the light was bad. ‘You have the youngest legs, lad,’ the Badeners said. ‘You still enjoy running about.’

Bertin did enjoy it, for as well as sating his thirst for adventure, he had found a genuine countryman and passing acquaintance in the lieutenant and battery commander there. Lieutenant Paul Schanz had taken his school leaving examination as an outside student with Bertin’s class at school some years previously. He was from Russian Poland, where his father worked as head foreman in a coal mine. The lieutenant had initially taken a bored tone with Bertin but had softened when he recognised him. By the end of Bertin’s second visit this tall, blonde man with blue eyes was inviting him to linger for a game of chess. The lieutenant was delightful company when he opened up. He and Bertin sat in the entrance to the dugout with a box between them shuffling the black and white pieces around. They talked to each other about the past and the present. They spoke about peace, which must surely come at the beginning of 1917. Bertin got the inside track on the light field howitzer – its mechanism and range, and how best to use it. Lieutenant Schanz, smart and clean-shaven, with smooth skin and a boyish laugh, told him how his men were getting into all kinds of careless ways, partly because they were so used to what they did and partly because they were sick of it. They were fed up with the whole bloody business. They no longer used a charge of salt to dampen the gleam from their shots because they didn’t want to have to clean the dirty barrels. They’d left their carabines at the rest camp so the locks wouldn’t get rusty – there were a lot of water trickles among the rocks – and anyway he didn’t even have the prescribed number of canister shells for close combat.

‘Who needs canister shells here?’ he said. ‘We’ll see to it that the Frogs don’t break through, and we’ll never have enough shrapnel.’ Thus, at the back, under a green tarpaulin, was a store of what were called canister shells, but in fact it was a dump of another 300 shrapnel.

The battery hardly fired now. Strict orders to save ammunition and keep it hidden from the French observers. On all the hills, sound-ranging troops lay in wait in the trenches on both sides, intelligent men with good eyes able to calculate a gun position’s distance from the interval between firing and impact. Using this information and with the help of the captive balloons, both sides were able to mark the enemy’s gun positions on their maps. The day would come when this information would be needed. Bertin also got the chance to look through the periscopic binoculars in Lieutenant Schanz’s observation post. They had been cleverly installed under a jutting rock behind the guns with a decoy barrel in a treetop 80m to the side to deceive the French aeroplanes. Through that curious apparatus, he saw inclines, scarred hillsides, tiny beings moving about, sharply alive, walls of earth and small hollows. Sometimes clouds appeared and drifted away. Those were the Belleville ridges, Schanz explained. Behind the horizon was a French battery, probably 400m to the rear, 5,500m from barrel to barrel.

‘I’d like to know if there’s another Schanz lying in wait in a dugout over there with his eye on our battery,’ he said.

Bertin didn’t want to let the amazing instrument go. ‘All in aid of destruction,’ he said, shaking his head and looking again into the grey-rimmed lenses. ‘When will we use this magic for something constructive?’

‘When indeed? After the peace, of course. When those chaps over there have realised they don’t have us by the throat.’

They were united in their desire for peace and they strolled back through the light, sunny air to have a smoke and think about how their lives might turn out. Paul Schanz hoped for a career in the administration of the Upper Silesian coal mines, where his father now worked. There was a lot of work to be done there. His father had written that the mines were being ruined. Nothing could be replaced properly, and the workings were threatened by gas and water. German coal was one of the most important tools of war: neutral and allied countries couldn’t get enough of it. Transport trains left Upper Silesian railway stations bound for Constantinople, Aleppo, Haifa.

Bertin’s visits often lasted only half an hour. He needed to be on the move again. One time, he didn’t meet his friends. They were further forwards installing new mine throwers. There was to be a local operation in mid-October to improve the infantry positions. But the next time, he’d arranged to meet Süßmann and as they walked along, chatting amiably, Süßmann told him about the casualties that had so put the wind up Captain Niggl.

‘Our author is horrified by the burden on your conscience, Lieutenant,’ joked Süßmann shortly after they arrived at Kroysing’s billet, taking a deep drag of his cigarette.

Bertin, who was enjoying the first puffs of a freshly filled pipe, met Kroysing’s astonished grey eyes calmly. He knew he’d have to choose his words carefully in order not to cause offence. ‘Four dead,’ he said, ‘and so much suffering. I’m sure you’re not indifferent to that either.’

‘Why not?’ asked Kroysing.

‘Does that require an answer?’ countered Bertin, whereupon the lieutenant told him not to sit there feeling pleased with himself but to think logically.

‘Is the war my responsibility? Obviously not. I’m not even liable for the transfer of Niggl’s battalion; that was some area commander or other. And in the final analysis it was a signature from the crown prince that put his men under my command. So, what do you want from me?’

Bertin asked him to leave this nice big picture aside and concentrate on one, perhaps incidental detail: who had had the men flung into Douaumont and why?

‘Because duty required it!’ Kroysing roared.

Bertin stepped back, blushed and was silent. He didn’t tell Kroysing that people roar when they are in the wrong. Instead, he resolved to leave again as soon as possible.

Kroysing frowned darkly, annoyed by his outburst. He bit his lip, glowered straight ahead, and then at his shocked visitors. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘But you’re so naïve it can really get on people’s nerves.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Bertin answered. ‘I was really enjoying your tobacco, and now my naïvety has spoilt my enjoyment.’

Kroysing considered. The man was sensitive. That was the good side of the self-pity that had provoked his own outburst, and it made up for it. ‘Sir,’ he said jokingly, ‘you’re a sensitive soul. I obviously need to bone up on the correct treatment of ASC men. How about a conciliatory drink?’ He opened the cabinet behind him – he was so tall he only needed to stretch out his arm – pulled out a familiar bottle and filled some glasses. ‘Well, Prost,’ he said. ‘Here’s to getting along.’ Bertin took small sips, Süßmann knocked back half his glass and Kroysing downed his in one with a satisfied look in his eyes. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s the stuff. You can wage war without women, ammunition or even trenches, but not without tobacco and definitely not without alcohol.