Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

‘I hope you know how the quotation continues,’ said Posnanski, getting ready to go.

‘How?’ said Winfried, his pale eyes meeting the dark grey ones of his stout friend.

‘Knock and it shall be opened unto you.’

Winfried laughed. ‘Right. Have a private word with Sergeant-Major Pont. I’ll be in reserve.’

‘Thanks,’ said Posnanski cheerfully. ‘And as you’re in such a giving mood, when can I have the car for a little official trip? I’m hearing strange noises from the Dannevoux field hospital.’

‘Laurenz Pont is the man for that.’

‘Good afternoon, then,’ said Posnanski expansively.

As he climbed the narrow staircase, moving slowly in the gloom because of his extreme myopia and astigmatism, he steeled himself for the distressing interview to come. Waiting upstairs was his clerk Adler, once a barrister at the High Court in Berlin… he quickly pushed the thought aside. Odd how things happened in pairs. He’d had two enquiries from the same field hospital on two successive days. First, the medical officer wanted to complain about the shoes issued to a particular ASC private and asked how best he might do this; secondly, a wounded lieutenant asked for a interview regarding a serious miscarriage of justice committed against his younger brother, killed in action. As he grasped the handrail then make his way across the rubble-strewn courtyard, Posnanski marvelled at people’s inextinguishable need for justice. In the middle of a war, when civilisation had long since broken down and was about as dilapidated as that Mairie over there, people still railed, in defiance of the gross injustice all around, against incidents that might have screamed unfairness to the heavens in peacetime but now counted as little more than minor irregularities. And it was good that they did so. For that unswerving compulsion provided the only means of bridging the abyss of the war years and creating a world worth living in.

‘Good afternoon, Herr Adler,’ said Posnanski.

Judge Advocate Posnanski’s uniform had a high collar, purple tabs, officer’s epaulettes and a dagger. His tunic strained almost as tightly round his stomach as did Colonel Stein’s, and he wore the same leather puttees round his calves. For these reasons, Bertin stood to attention in his presence, which rather turned Dr Posnanski against him.

The medical officer, Dr Münnich, a man in his fifties with bristling grey hair and grey eyes, had cut his interview short by producing the shoes in which Private Pahl had been admitted to hospital: a hole in the middle of the left sole and the tip of the right one as good as gone. Dr Münnich had a tendency to flush, which made his duelling scars stand out. He spoke in a very controlled way but liked to tear the objects of his wrath up by the roots – which, as can be imagined, had made him a difficult but respected colleague in Liegnitz in Silesia in peacetime and wherever his division was stationed in wartime. He explained that he considered it unnecessary to increase the hospital population in this way and considered a battalion commander who allowed this to happen unnecessary and would like to make that clear to the gentleman. However, the division in question came under the ‘other bank’ – headquarters in Damvillers. How to bridge that gulf?

Dr Posnanski smiled thinly. There had been tensions between the Eastern and Western Groups since His Excellency von Lychow had stated that no captain under the command of the General Staff should have risked confining the attack to the right bank, even if experienced corps commanders had said that their Brandenburgers could manage it on their lonesome. This tart criticism, uttered on the evening of Pierrepont, had been instantly conveyed, as is customary among comrades, to the commander of the Eastern Group. He had merely sniffed contemptuously and asked what an Eastern front bunny rabbit like Lychow was meant to know about operations in France. Since then the two officers had been rather off with each other, had avoided meeting and enjoyed putting little difficulties in each other’s way. Dr Posnanski was generally considered to be a peaceable man, but he understood how power worked. If His Excellency Lychow happened to be in a good mood, then it would be easy to free his clerk Adler from the clutches of the murder commission. He’d just have to be transferred to a fighting regiment, the radio operators or telegraphists. If that happened straight away and with his Excellency’s blessing, then none of his well-meaning colleagues would have time to denounce him. If Posnanski introduced these boots in a joking way, they might amuse the great man, who could then forward them to the proud gentleman on the right bank with an appropriate dedication. And so Posnanski had the offending objects wrapped up and told the doctor he’d see to them. That done, he asked for somewhere to have a conversation with Lieutenant Kroysing undisturbed.

Undisturbed would be difficult, explained the medical officer. Every corner of his barracks was in use. But then something occurred to him. One of his nurses, the most able as it happened, had asked for a room to herself when she joined them – just a little corner with a window and a bed, so that she could be by herself from time to time. And as she was actually a colonel’s wife and therefore enjoyed a certain influence, they had cleared out a room for her that the hospital orderlies kept their buckets and brooms in. A window was cut in the barracks wall, and Sister Kläre had gladly taken up residence. ‘She’s one of the quiet, warm-hearted ones, who’s been through a lot herself and therefore understands what other people need,’ explained Dr Münnich. As they were busy and it was all hands on deck, the small room would definitely be free. Luckily, the cold snap had broken a few days ago, as well it might have given the time of year, so the gentlemen wouldn’t freeze – there was of course no stove in the room.

Sister Kläre wasn’t exactly overjoyed when asked for her room. But she nodded, went in first and turned a picture to the wall that was hanging above the bed. The crucifix at the head of the bed stayed where it was. The patient Kroysing could lie down. One of the gentleman could sit beside him, and the other would have to stand. The other, naturally, was Bertin, who had been phoned for in plenty of time and had just arrived from work, dog tired and still starving. But he was so intimidated by the presence of this high-ranking officer called Judge Advocate Posnanski that he initially said nothing at all, only stuttering out a shy request for bread and to be allowed to sit down. This too made a bad impression on Posnanski. This man who was of the same religion as him was lazy and greedy as a pig. He was a pathetic sight sitting there on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him, shamelessly shovelling soup out of a large bowl and crumbling bread into it, all the while preventing more civilised people from smoking and getting comfortable. With his sticky-out ears and damaged front teeth, he was hardly an adornment to the Prussian army. Furthermore, in his excitement over this decisive meeting, Kroysing had laid so much weight on Bertin’s testimony when introducing him (‘…and this is my friend Bertin, who spoke to my brother the day before he died and will tell you what he learnt from him…’) that Dr Posnanski, never much good at remembering names, had completely failed to note this one. Lieutenant Kroysing, whom Posnanski had liked at once, began to speak, and the lawyer listened. The room was as white and narrow as a ship’s cabin, and as soon as the witness laid down his spoon it was also equally smoky. For Posnanski had put his cigar case on Sister Kläre’s bedside table for people to help themselves. Kroysing’s deep voice vibrated through the clouds of tobacco smoke. Posnanski asked questions, and Bertin listened. This was the story of Sergeant Kroysing and his brother, Lieutenant Kroysing, who had done battle with that dwarf Niggl in the dripstone caves and hideouts of Douaumont mountain, only to have the pesky little gremlin snatched away from him by the French attack, overhasty orders and thick fog. And now Bertin was smoking a stogie such as he hadn’t enjoyed since his wedding, and that wedding seemed to belong to another world beyond the River Acheron, the world of the living where his sweet and lovely wife was getting thinner and thinner because even gods and goddesses starved in those iron-hard times. How did those verses go that he’d read at university from the ancient Norse Edda about doom fulfilled? ‘I was snowed on with snow, and smitten with rain, And drenched with dew; long was I dead.’ Did that apply to Christoph Kroysing, Sergeant Süßmann or Paul Schanz? In any case, there he was squatting like a beggar on the floorboards of a strange woman’s bedroom, ready to fall asleep… The weariness of spring, the waxing moon, and the goods train on the siding at Vilosnes-East station growing longer…