All quiet on the Western Front
says someone.
"We are saying prayers, that is why the door is open," she responds.
"But we want to go on sleeping----"
"Prayer is better than sleep," she stands there and smiles
innocently. "And it is seven o'clock already."
Albert groans again. "Shut the door," I snort.
She is quite disconcerted. Apparently she cannot understand. "But
we are saying prayers for you too."
"Shut the door, anyway."
She disappears leaving the door open. The intoning of the Litany
proceeds.
I feel savage, and say: "I'm going to count up to three. If it
doesn't stop before then I'll let something fly."
"Me, too," says another.
I count up to five. Then I take hold of a bottle, aim, and heave it
through the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousand
pieces. The praying stops. A swarm of sisters appear and reproach
us in concert.
"Shut the door!" we yell.
They withdraw. The little one who came first is the last to go.
"Heathen," she chirps, but shuts the door all the same. We have won.
* *
At noon the hospital inspector arrives and abuses us. He threatens
us with clink and all the rest of it. But a hospital inspector is
just the same as a commissariat inspector, or any one else who wears
a long dagger and shoulder straps, but is really a clerk, and is
never considered even by a recruit as a real officer. So we let him
talk. What can they do to us, anyway----
"Who threw the bottle?" he asks.
Before I can think whether I should report myself, someone says: "I
did."
A man with a bristling beard sits up. Everyone is excited; why
should he report himself?
"You?"
"Yes. I was annoyed because we were waked up unnecessarily and lost
my senses so that I did not know what I was doing."
He talks like a book.
"What is your name?"
"Reinforcement-Reservist Josef Hamacher."
The inspector departs.
We are all curious. "But why did you say you did it? It wasn't you
at all!"
He grins. "That doesn't matter. I have a shooting licence."
Then, of course, we all understand. Whoever has a shooting licence
can do just whatever he pleases.
"Yes," he explains, "I got a crack in the head and they presented me
with a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible for
my actions. Ever since then I've had a grand time. No one dares to
annoy me. And nobody does anything to me."
"I reported myself because the shot amused me. If they open the door
again to-morrow we will pitch another."
We are overjoyed. With Josef Hamacher in our midst we can now risk
anything.
Then come the soundless, flat trollies to take us away.
The bandages are stuck fast. We bellow like steers.
* *
There are eight men in our room. Peter, a curly black-haired fellow,
has the worst injury;--a severe lung wound. Franz Wächter, alongside
him, has a shot in the arm which didn't look too bad at first. But
the third night he calls out to us, telling us to ring, he thinks he
has a hæmorrhage.
I ring loudly. The night sister does not come. We have been making
rather heavy demands on her during the night, because we have all
been freshly bandaged, and so have a good deal of pain. One wants
his leg placed so, another so, a third wants water, a fourth wants
her to shake up his pillow;--in the end the buxom old body grumbled
bad temperedly and slammed the doors. Now no doubt she thinks it is
something of the same sort and so she is not coming.
We wait. Then Franz says: "Ring again."
I do so. Still she does not put in an appearance. In our wing there
is only one night sister, perhaps she has something to do in one of
the other rooms. "Franz, are you quite sure you are bleeding?" I
ask. "Otherwise we shall be getting cursed again."
"The bandage is wet. Can't anybody make a light?"
That cannot be done either. The switch is by the door and none of us
can stand up. I hold my thumb against the button of the bell till it
becomes numb. Perhaps the sister has fallen asleep. They certainly
have a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day. And
added to that is the everlasting praying.
"Should we smash a bottle?" asks Josef Hamacher of the shooting
licence.
"She wouldn't hear that any more than the bell."
At last the door opens. The old lady appears, mumbling. When she
perceives Franz's trouble she begins to bustle, and says: "Why did
not someone say I was wanted?"
"We did ring. And none of us here can walk."
He has been bleeding badly and she binds him up. In the morning we
look at his face, it has become sharp and yellow, whereas the evening
before he looked almost healthy. Now a sister comes oftener.
* *
Sometimes there are red-cross voluntary aid sisters. They are
pleasant, but often rather unskilled. They frequently give us pain
when re-making our beds, and then are so frightened that they hurt us
still more.
The nuns are more reliable. They know how they must take hold of us,
but we would be more pleased if they were somewhat more cheerful. A
few of them have real spirit, they are superb. There is no one who
would not do anything for Sister Libertine, this marvellous sister,
who spreads good cheer through the whole wing even when she can only
be seen in the distance. And there are others like her. We would go
through fire for her. A man cannot really complain, here he is
treated by the nuns exactly like a civilian. On the other hand, just
to think of a garrison hospital gives a man the creeps.
Franz Wachter does not regain his strength. One day he is taken away
and does not come back. Josef Hamacher knows all about it: "We
shan't see him again. They have put him in the dead room."
"What do you mean, Dead Room?" asks Kropp.
"Well, Dying Room----"
"What is that, then?"
"A little room at the corner of the building. Whoever is about to
kick the bucket is put in there. There are two beds in it. It is
generally called the Dying Room."
"But what do they do that for?"
"They don't have so much work to do afterwards. It is more
convenient, too, because it lies right beside the lift to the
mortuary. Perhaps also they do it for the sake of the others, so
that no one in the ward dies in sympathy. And they can look after
him better, too, if he is by himself."
"But what about him?"
Josef shrugs his shoulders. "Usually he doesn't take much notice any
more."
"Does everybody know about it then?"
"Anyone who has been here long enough knows, of course."
* *
In the afternoon Franz Wachter's bed has a fresh occupant. A couple
of days later they take the new man away, too. Josef makes a
significant gesture. We see many come and go.
Often relatives sit by the beds and weep or talk softly and
awkwardly. One old woman will not go away, but she cannot stay there
the whole night through. Another morning she comes very early, but
not early enough; for as she goes up to the bed, someone else is in
it already. She has to go to the mortuary. The apples that she has
brought with her she gives to us.
And then little Peter begins to get worse. His temperature chart
looks bad, and one day the flat trolley stands beside his bed.
"Where to?" he asks.
"To the bandaging ward."
He is lifted out. But the sister makes the mistake of removing his
tunic from the hook and putting it on the trolley too, so that she
should not have to make two journeys. Peter understands immediately
and tries to roll off the trolley. "I'm stopping here!"
They push him back. He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: "I
won't go to the Dying Room."
"But we are going to the bandaging ward."
"Then what do you want my tunic for?" He can speak no more. Hoarse,
agitated, he whispers: "Stopping here!"
They do not answer but wheel him out. At the door he tries to raise
himself up. His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears.
"I will come back again! I will come back again!" he cries.
The door shuts. We are all excited; but we say nothing. At last
Josef says: "Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, he
never comes through."
* *
I am operated on and vomit for two days. My bones will not grow
together, so the surgeon's secretary says. Another fellow's have
grown crooked; his are broken again. It is disgusting.
Among our new arrivals there are two young soldiers with flat feet.
The chief surgeon discovers them on his rounds, and is overjoyed.
"We'll soon put that right," he tells them, "we will just do a small
operation, and then you will have perfectly sound feet. Enter them
down, sister."
As soon as he is gone, Josef, who knows everything, warns them:
"Don't you let him operate on you! That is a special scientific
stunt of the old boy's. He goes absolutely crazy whenever he can get
hold of anyone to do it on. He operates on you for flat feet, and
there's no mistake, you don't have them any more; you have club feet
instead, and have to walk all the rest of your life on sticks."
"What should a man do, then?" asks one of them.
"Say No. You are here to be cured of your wound, not your flat feet.
Did you have any trouble with them in the field? No, well, there you
are! At present you can still walk, but if once the old boy gets you
under the knife you'll be cripples. What he wants is little dogs to
experiment with, so the war is a glorious time for him, as it is for
all the surgeons. You take a look down below at the staff; there are
a dozen fellows hobbling around that he has operated on. A lot of
them have been here all the time since 'fourteen and 'fifteen. Not a
single one of them can walk better than he could before, almost all
of them worse, and most only with plaster legs. Every six months he
catches them again and breaks their bones afresh, and every time is
going to be the successful one. You take my word, he won't dare to
do it if you say No."
"Ach, man," says one of the two unfortunates, "better your feet than
your brain-box. There's no telling what you'll get if you go back
out there again. They can do with me just as they please, so long as
I get back home. Better to have a club foot than be dead."
The other, a young fellow like ourselves, won't have it done. One
morning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws at
them so long, that in the end they consent. What else could they
do?--They are mere privates, and he is a big bug. They are brought
back chloroformed and plastered.
* *
It is going badly with Albert. They have taken him and amputated his
leg. The whole leg has been taken off from the thigh. Now he hardly
speaks any more. Once he says he will shoot himself the first time
he can get hold of his revolver again.
A new convoy arrives. Our room gets two blind men. One of them is a
very youthful musician. The sisters never have a knife with them
when they feed him; he has already snatched one from a sister. But
in spite of this caution there is an incident. In the evening, while
he is being fed, the sister is called away, and leaves the plate with
the fork on his table. He gropes for the fork, seizes it and drives
it with all his force against his heart, then he snatches up a shoe
and strikes with it against the handle as hard as he can. We call
for help and three men are necessary to take the fork away from him.
The blunt prongs had already penetrated deep. He abuses us all night
so that no one can go to sleep. In the morning he has lock-jaw.
Again beds become empty. Day after day goes by with pain and fear,
groans and death-gurgles. Even the Death Room is no use any more, it
is too small; fellows die during the night in our room. They go even
faster than the sisters can cope with them.
But one day the door flies open, the flat trolley rolls in, and there