Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

Then Sergeant Major Pfund came out – an old regular. He’d buckled on his sabre and waxed his moustache, but in his hand he held an iron box: the cash tin containing the company’s canteen money. For nine months, the men had all been forced to contribute a couple of pennies every pay day towards supplies for the company canteen; excess profits were supposed to be paid back to the men after a certain amount of time. Sergeant Major Pfund set about distributing this money. His ruse was to go to Metz, where he was well know, buy cheap trinkets (duff knives, red-patterned hankies and ordinary lighters, as it later transpired) and pocket the rest. ‘What a fiddle,’ said Bertin to himself. ‘He’ll have got a fair bit, and no one will dare say anything, me included, although we could all do with a couple of extra Marks.’ Bertin resolved to work out later how much the orderly must’ve had in that iron box; for now he wanted to watch what was going on. (If all the men paid in just 10 Pfennigs every 10 days it came to 1,269 Marks.)

It was clearing up. Suddenly, a shaft of weak sunlight glinted off the brass sabre scabbard and Herr Graßnick’s eye glass. Herr Graßnick then made a dignified exit, for the train, small but clearly visible in the distance, was being coupled together at Moirey station from empty goods wagons and passenger cars, some with white in their windows. Bertin couldn’t discern any more details with his short-sighted eyes, which was just as well, as the white was bandages; the cars had come from Azannes and were full of wounded men. The company was to be left alone then. A thick brown cloud hung over Chaumont, which was on fire. The officers were tramping down the steps now. In a moment they’d appear on the road and pass in front of him. There they were: Acting Lieutenant Graßnick with his brown dog on a lead, Staff Sergeant Pohl with his blonde beard, Sergeant Major Pfund with his cash-box, his sabre over his coat, and Mikoleit the batman with his crate. They were joined by 20 happy ASC privates going on legitimate leave who seemed to have been waiting for them on the road. Bertin’s cell suddenly felt too small. He needed to get out, breathe the fresh air and stand in the sun for a moment. The men on guard had now calmed down. It wasn’t yet 1pm, but because men were going on leave lunch had already been served to the entire company – a festive meal of beef and haricot beans – proving that the kitchen staff could sometimes get things done on time. After lunch the guards sat in the sun with their prisoners, enjoying the faint warmth on their faces and hands. A captive balloon had gone up to the southwest – the Frogs checking the area out. The wind was blowing in from the east that day, bringing the dull clang of exploding shells and the thunder of defensive fire. Bertin decided to use the daylight to write some more. He’d been thinking and had drafted a couple of short chapters, one of which took place in the home of Kroysing’s parents, possibly in Bamberg. The home of a well-to-do official. The news arrives that the younger son has died a hero’s death. What he had to convey was their genuine pain, clouded by the inflated ideas of the time, so starkly at odds with reality. What name should he give poor Kroysing? Artistic distance and licence required that he transform his subject just as an artist would in a painting.

Back in his cell, he was puffing on a cigar, imagining he felt the warmth of the sun through the black roof, when he heard a familiar howl up above. It hurtled closer, roaring, shrieking, and shattered with a desolate crash. Bertin jumped up; it had landed in the depot. ‘How come?’ he thought. They couldn’t… a second crash, a third, then the dull roar of an explosion. One of the explosives dumps had been hit! Although Bertin could only see the street and the hollow of the valley from his window, he jumped on to the plank bed: crowds of men from the company thundered across the steps and paths. They were off. Quite right, thought Bertin. Their leaders have left, and now they’re leaving too . A fourth and fifth strike hit the depot. Now people were screaming. An unspeakably shrill howl drove him from the bed and out into the guard room. Büttner, an industrialist in civilian life, stood in the middle of the room, pale and calm. His men were yanking on their boots and screaming: ‘They’ve got us!’

The next strike crashed even nearer. ‘You’d better take your things,’ said Büttner, opening the locker. Bertin stuffed into his pockets the belongings he’d handed over two day before. While he put on his watch, the depot was emptying. Streams of grey-clad soldiers dashed into the barracks – on a cold night like that you needed a blanket. With a nod towards the open door, Büttner set his prisoner free to join the stream of fleeing men. But Bertin thanked him and declined, saying they would all be safer from shell splinters where they were. Just then Schneevoigt the medical orderly and his men, three pale Berliners and a native of Hamburg, ran out into the strike zone. It was their duty to do that – that was why they wore armbands with a red cross – but amidst the general chaos and flight it was encouraging to see men not copping out.

Huge clouds of black and white smoke billowed up from the depot; the explosives dumps were on fire. A gently sloping 12m high earthen ridge still stood between the barracks and the exploded shells. But the swathes of smoke would tell the French gunners where to aim. Standing in the doorway, Bertin was suddenly aware of two contrasting movements. Lieutenant Benndorf, the depot adjutant, was hirpling up to the orderly room with his walking stick, while Sergeant Schneevoigt, dirty and pale, was trotting down the earthen ridge followed by two of his men carrying a bulging tarpaulin between them.

‘Who’ve you got there?’ Büttner’s boyish voice soared past Bertin’s cap. Old Schneevoigt, a barber by trade, didn’t answer. He was swallowing hard, and his face was almost the same colour and as his moustache. He just shook his fist at the columns of smoke.

‘It was once little Vehse,’ said one of the stretcher bearers for him. ‘He’s gone.’

Hildebrandt the tall blacksmith had come running over in the meantime. He’d collected a few bandages from the sick room and said there were three more dead among the explosives dumps: Hein Foth, the dirtiest man in the company, and the illiterate farm labourer Wilhelm Schmidt. They’d both run right into an exploding shell. Another man by the name of Reinhold had been killed by a direct hit. Bertin started – good-natured little Otto Reinhold. ‘One of the original ones from Küstrin, if that’s who you mean,’ confirmed Hildebrandt.

A man from his own squad. And Wilhelm Schmidt and the lice-infested Foth were near neighbours of his too. No doubt he’d have been ordered out into the depot too if he hadn’t been ‘inside’. But there was no time for these deliberations now. Old Schneevoigt had found his tongue again and walked a few steps towards them. ‘Get out of here!’ he shouted. ‘There are a dozen wounded lying in the ditches by the road. Do you want to join them?’ and he trotted back into the sick bay, while another two of his men dragged over a tarpaulin, a brown one this time.

Sergeant Büttner gathered his pale lads around him. All of them were tall, but he was taller. He explained to them that the company had left, and so they were dismissed from guard duty and could leave too if they wanted. They buckled on their belts and rolled up their blankets. Bertin disappeared into his cell. While he hastily parcelled up his rations and blankets, pulled on his coat and felt in his pockets, he said his goodbyes to the slatted walls, the plank bed and the window. They’d brought him refreshment and allowed him to plunge back into an earlier existence, and he would never forget that. Now the Frogs had brought it to a premature end. In the guardroom, heavily laden men pushed towards the door. Just then another tarpaulin was carried past. Schneevoigt could be seen in the open doorway of the sick room, kneeling beside something unrecognisable and half in shadow. With an immense howl another shell crashed into the depot. Everyone ducked and pulled their heads in. Smoke billowed outside the window. Shell splinters or lumps of earth drummed against the wall. Then from the orderly room a clear voice shouted: ‘Everybody out! Firemen, fall in. Forward march to the depot. Put out those explosive dumps!’