All quiet on the Western Front
alone made it possible; we would have run even if our feet had been
shot off;--we would have run on the stumps.
I can still crawl a little. I call out to a passing ambulance wagon
which picks us up. It is full of wounded. There is an army medical
lance-corporal with it who sticks an anti-tetanus needle into our
chests.
At the dressing station we arrange matters so that we lie side by
side. They give us a thin soup which we spoon down greedily and
scornfully, because we are accustomed to better times but are hungry
all the same.
"Now for home, Albert," I say.
"Let's hope so," he replies, "I only wish I knew what I've got."
The pain increases. The bandages burn like fire. We drink and
drink, one glass of water after another.
"How far above the knee am I hit?" asks Kropp.
"At least four inches, Albert," I answer. Actually it is perhaps one.
"I've made up my mind," he says after a while, "if they take off my
leg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple."
So we lie there with our thoughts and wait.
* *
In the evening we are hauled on to the chopping-block. I am
frightened and think quickly what I ought to do; for everyone knows
that the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightest
provocation. Under the great pressure of business that is much
simpler than complicated patching. I think of Kemmerich. Whatever
happens I will not let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack a
couple of their skulls.
It is all right. The surgeon pokes around in the wound and a
blackness comes before my eyes. "Don't carry on so," he says
gruffly, and hacks away. The instruments gleam in the bright light
like malevolent animals. The pain is insufferable. Two orderlies
hold my arms fast, but I break loose with one of them and try to
crash into the surgeon's spectacles just as he notices and springs
back. "Chloroform the scoundrel," he roars madly.
Then I become quiet. "Pardon me, Herr Doctor, I will keep still, but
do not chloroform me."
"Well now," he cackles and takes up his instrument again. He is a
fair fellow, not more than thirty years old, with scars and
disgusting gold spectacles. Now I see that he is tormenting me, he
is merely raking about in the wound and looking up surreptitiously at
me over his glasses. My hands squeeze around the grips, I'll kick
the bucket before he will get a squeak out of me.
He has fished out a piece of shell and tosses it to me. Apparently
he is pleased at my self-control, for he seems to be more considerate
of me now and says: "To-morrow you'll be off home." Then I am put in
plaster. When I am back again with Kropp I tell him that apparently
a hospital train comes in to-morrow morning.
"We must work the army medical sergeant-major so that we can keep
together, Albert."
I manage to slip the sergeant-major two of my cigars with
belly-bands, and then tip the word to him. He smells the cigars and
says: "Have you got any more of them?"
"Another good handful," I say, "and my comrade," I point to Kropp,
"he has some as well. We might possibly be glad to hand them to you
out of the window of the hospital train in the morning."
He understands, of course, smells them once again and says: "Done."
We cannot get a minute's sleep all night. Seven fellows die in our
ward. One of them sings hymns in a high cracked tenor before he
begins to gurgle. Another has crept out of his bed to the window.
He lies in front of it as though he wants to look out for the last
time.
* *
Our stretchers stand on the platform. We wait for the train. It
rains and the station has no roof. Our covers are thin. We have
waited already two hours.
The sergeant-major looks after us like a mother. Although I feel
pretty bad I do not let our scheme out of my mind. Occasionally I
let him see the packet and give him one cigar in advance. In
exchange the sergeant-major covers us over with a water-proof sheet.
"Albert, old man," I suddenly bethink myself, "our four poster and
the cat----"
"And the club chairs," he adds.
Yes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening we used to sit
in them like lords, and intended later on to let them out by the
hour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regular
business, a real good living.
"And our bags of grub, too, Albert."
We grow melancholy. We might have made some use of the things. If
only the train left one day later Kat would be sure to find us and
bring us the stuff.
What damned hard luck! In our bellies there is gruel, mean hospital
stuff, and in our bags roast pork. But we are so weak that we cannot
work up any more excitement about it.
The stretchers are sopping wet by the time the train arrives in the
morning. The sergeant-major sees to it that we are put in the same
car. There is a crowd of red-cross nurses. Kropp is stowed in
below. I am lifted up and put into the bed above him.
"Good God!" I exclaim suddenly.
"What is it?" asks the sister.
I cast a glance at the bed. It is covered with clean snow-white
linen, that even has the marks of the iron still on it. And my shirt
has gone six weeks without being washed and is terribly muddy.
"Can't you get in by yourself?" asks the sister gently.
"Why yes," I say in a sweat, "but take off the bed cover first."
"What for?"
I feel like a pig. Must I get in there?--"It will get----" I
hesitate.
"A little bit dirty?" she suggests helpfully. "That doesn't matter,
we will wash it again afterwards."
"No, no, not that----" I say excitedly. I am not equal to such
overwhelming refinement.
"When you have been lying out there in the trenches, surely we can
wash a sheet," she goes on.
I look at her, she is young and crisp, spotless and neat, like
everything here; a man cannot realize that it isn't for officers
only, and feels himself strange and in some way even alarmed.
All the same, the woman is a tormentor, she is going to force me to
say it. "It is only----" I try again, surely she must know what I
mean.
"What is it then?"
"Because of the lice," I bawl out at last.
She laughs. "Well, they must have a good day for once, too."
Now I don't care any more. I scramble into bed and pull up the
covers.
A hand gropes over the bed-cover. The sergeant-major. He goes off
with the cigars.
An hour later we notice that we are moving.
At night I cannot sleep. Kropp is restless too. The train rides
easily over the rails. I cannot realize it all yet; a bed, a train,
home. "Albert!" I whisper.
"Yes----"
"Do you know where the latrine is?"
"Over to the right of the door, I think."
"I'm going to have a look." It is dark, I grope for the edge of the
bed and cautiously try to slide down. But my foot finds no support,
I begin to slip, the plaster leg is no help, and with a crash I lie
on the floor.
"Damn!" I say.
"Have you bumped yourself?" asks Kropp.
"You could hear that well enough for yourself," I growl, "my head----"
A door opens in the rear of the car. The sister comes with a light
and looks at me.
"He has fallen out of bed----"
She feels my pulse and smooths my forehead. "You haven't any fever,
though."
"No." I agree.
"Have you been dreaming then?" she asks.
"Perhaps----" I evade. The interrogation starts again. She looks at
me with her clear eyes, and the more wonderful and sweet she is the
less am I able to tell her what I want.
I am lifted up into bed again. That will be all right. As soon as
she goes I must try to climb down again. If she were an old woman,
it might be easier to say what a man wants, but she is so very young,
at the most twenty-five, it can't be done, I cannot possibly tell her.
Then Albert comes to my rescue, he is not bashful, it makes no
difference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turns
round. "Sister, he wants----" but no more does Albert know how to
express it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a single
word, but here, to such a lady---- All at once he remembers his
school days and finishes hastily: "He wants to leave the room,
sister."
"Ah!" says the sister, "but he shouldn't climb out of his bed with
his plaster bandage. What do you want then?" she says, turning to me.
I am in mortal terror at this new turn, for I haven't any idea what
the things are called professionally. She comes to my help.
"Little or big?"
This shocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: "Well,
only quite a little one----"
At any rate, it produces the effect.
I get a bottle. After a few hours I am no longer the only one, and
by morning we are quite accustomed to it and ask for what we want
without any false modesty.
The train travels slowly. Sometimes it halts and the dead are
unloaded. It halts often.
Albert is feverish. I feel miserable and have a good deal of pain,
but the worst of it is that apparently there are still lice under the
plaster bandage. They itch terribly, and I cannot scratch myself.
We sleep through the days. The country glides quietly past the
window. The third night we reach Herbstal. I hear from the sister
that Albert is to be put off at the next station because of his
fever. "How far does the train go?" I ask.
"To Cologne."
"Albert," I say, "we stick together; you see."
On the sister's next round I hold my breath and press it up into my
head. My face swells and turns red. She stops. "Are you in pain?"
"Yes," I groan, "all of a sudden."
She gives me a thermometer and goes on. I would not have been under
Kat's tuition if I did not know what to do now. These army
thermometers are not made for old soldiers. All one has to do is to
drive the quicksilver up and then it stays there without falling
again.
I stick the thermometer under my arm at a slant, and flip it steadily
with my forefinger. Then I give it a shake. I send it up to 100.2°.
But that is not enough. A match held cautiously near to it brings it
up to 101.6°.
As the sister comes back, I blow myself out, breathe in short gasps,
goggle at her with vacant eyes, toss about restlessly, and mutter in
a whisper: "I can't bear it any longer----"
She notes me down on a slip of paper. I know perfectly well my
plaster bandage will not be re-opened if it can be avoided. Albert
and I are put off together.
* *
We are in the same room in a Catholic Hospital. That is a piece of
luck, the Catholic infirmaries are noted for their good treatment and
good food. The hospital has been filled up from our train, there are
a great many bad cases amongst them. We do not get examined to-day
because there are too few surgeons. The flat trolleys with the
rubber wheels pass continually along the corridor, and always with
someone stretched at full length upon them. A damnable position,
stretched out at full length like that;--the only time it is good is
when one is asleep.
The night is very disturbed. No one can sleep. Toward morning we
doze a little. I wake up just as it grows light. The door stands
open and I hear voices from the corridor. The others wake up too.
One fellow, who has been there a couple of days already explains it
to us: "Up here in the corridor every morning the sisters say
prayers. They call it Morning Devotion. And so that you can get
your share, they leave the door open."
No doubt it is well meant, but it gives us aches in our head and
bones.
"Such an absurdity!" I say, "just when a man dropped off to sleep."
"All the light cases are up here, that's why they do it here," he
replies.
Albert groans. I get furious and call out: "Be quiet out there!"
A minute later a sister appears. In her black and white dress she
looks like a beautiful tea-cosy. "Shut the door, will you, sister?"