All quiet on the Western Front

longer soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked; then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. When bathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now--but why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: "That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn't want to die. Let him not die!" My thoughts become confused. This atmosphere of carbolic and gangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates. It grows dark. Kemmerich's face changes colour, it lifts from the pillow and is so pale that it gleams. The mouth moves slightly. I draw near to him. He whispers: "If you find my watch, send it home----" I do not reply. It is no use any more. No one can console him. I am wretched with helplessness. This forehead with its hollow temples, this mouth that is now merely a slit, this sharp nose! And the fat, weeping woman at home to whom I must write. If only the letter were sent off already! Hospital-orderlies go to and fro with bottles and pails. One of them comes up, casts a glance at Kemmerich and goes away again. You can see he is waiting, apparently he wants the bed. I bend over Franz and talk to him as though that could save him: "Perhaps you will go to the convalescent home at Klosterberg, among the villas, Franz. Then you can look out from the window across the fields to the two trees on the horizon. It is the loveliest time of the year now, when the corn ripens; at evening the fields in the sunlight look like mother-of-pearl. And the lane of poplars by the Klosterbach, where we used to catch sticklebacks! You can build an aquarium again and keep fish in it, and you can go out without asking anyone, you can even play the piano if you want to." I lean down over his face which lies in the shadow. He still breathes, lightly. His face is wet, he is crying. What a fine mess I have made of it with my foolish talk! "But Franz"--I put my arm round his shoulder and put my face against his. "Will you sleep now?" He does not answer. The tears run down his cheeks. I would like to wipe them away but my handkerchief is too dirty. An hour passes. I sit tensely and watch his every movement in case he may perhaps say something. What if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. This is the most disturbing and hardest parting that ever I have seen, although it was pretty bad too with Tiedjen, who called for his mother--a big bear of a fellow who, with wild eyes full of terror, held off the doctor from his bed with a dagger until he collapsed. Suddenly Kemmerich groans and begins to gurgle. I jump up, stumble outside and demand: "Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?" As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold of it: "Come quick, Franz Kemmerich is dying." He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: "Which will that be?" He says: "Bed 26, amputated thigh." He sniffs: "How should I know anything about it, I've amputated five legs to-day"; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly "You see to it," and runs off to the operating room. I tremble with rage as I go along with the orderly. The man looks at me and says: "One operation after another since five o'clock this morning. You know to-day alone there have been sixteen deaths--yours is the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether----" I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again. We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The face is still wet from the tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons. The orderly pokes me in the ribs. "Are you taking his things with you?" I nod. He goes on: "We must take him away at once, we want the bed. Outside they are lying on the floor." I collect the things, untie Kemmerich's identification disc and take it away. The orderly asks about the pay-book, I say that it is probably in the orderly-room, and go. Behind me they are already hauling Franz on to a water-proof sheet. Outside the door I am aware of the darkness and the wind as a deliverance. I breathe as deep as I can, and feel the breeze in my face, warm and soft as never before. Thoughts of girls, of flowery meadows, of white clouds suddenly come into my head. My feet begin to move forward in my boots, I go quicker, I run. Soldiers pass by me, I hear their voices without understanding. The earth is streaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of my feet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums. My limbs move supplely, I feel my joints strong, I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone. Müller stands in front of the hut and waits for me. I give him the boots. We go in and he tries them on. They fit well. He roots among his supplies and offers me a fine piece of saveloy. With it goes hot tea and rum. CHAPTER III Reinforcements have arrived. The vacancies have been filled and the sacks of straw are already laid out in the huts. Some of them are old hands, but there are twenty-five men of a later draft from the base. They are about two years younger than us. Kropp nudges me: "Seen the infants?" I nod. We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves to be stone-age veterans. Katczinsky joins us. We stroll past the horse-boxes and go over to the reinforcements, who have already been issued with gas-masks and coffee. "Long time since you've had anything decent to eat, eh?" Kat asks one of the youngsters. He grimaces. "For breakfast, turnip-bread--lunch, turnip-stew--supper, turnip-cutlets and turnip-salad." Kat gives a knowing whistle. "Bread made of turnips? You've been in luck, it's nothing new for it to be made of sawdust. But what do you say to haricot beans? Have some?" The youngster turns red: "You can't kid me." Katczinsky merely says: "Fetch your mess-tin." We follow curiously. He takes us to a tub beside his straw sack. It is nearly half full of a stew of beef and beans. Katczinsky plants himself in front of it like a general and says: "Sharp eyes and light fingers! That's what the Prussians say." We are surprised. "Great guts, Kat, how did you come by that?" I ask him. "Ginger was glad I took it. I gave him three pieces of parachute silk for it. Cold beans taste fine, too." Grudgingly he gives the youngster a portion and says: "Next time you come with your mess-tin have a cigar or a chew of tobacco in your other hand. Get me?" Then he turns to us. "You get off scot free, of course." * * Katczinsky never goes short; he has a sixth sense. There are such people everywhere but one does not appreciate it at first. Every company has one or two. Katczinsky is the smartest I know. By trade he is a cobbler, I believe, but that hasn't anything to do with it; he understands all trades. It's a good thing to be friends with him, as Kropp and I are, and Haie Westhus too, more or less. But Haie is rather the executive arm operating under Kat's orders when things come to blows. For that he has his qualifications. For example, we land at night in some entirely unknown spot, a sorry hole, that has been eaten out to the very walls. We are quartered in a small dark factory adapted to the purpose. There are beds in it, or rather bunks--a couple of wooden beams over which wire netting is stretched. Wire netting is hard. And there's nothing to put on it. Our waterproof sheets are too thin. We use our blankets to cover ourselves. Kat looks at the place and then says to Haie Westhus: "Come with me." They go off to explore. Half an hour later they are back again with arms full of straw. Kat has found a horse-box with straw in it. Now we might sleep if we weren't so terribly hungry. Kropp asks an artilleryman who has been some time in this neighbourhood: "Is there a canteen anywhere abouts?" "Is there a what?" he laughs. "There's nothing to be had here. You won't find so much as a crust of bread here." "Aren't there any inhabitants here at all then?" He spits. "Yes, a couple. But they mostly loaf round the cook house and beg." "That's a bad business!--Then we'll have to pull in our belts and wait till the rations come up in the morning." But I see Kat has put on his cap. "Where to, Kat?" I ask. "Just to explore the place a bit." He strolls off. The artilleryman grins scornfully. "Let him explore! But don't be too hopeful about it." Disappointed we lie down and consider whether we couldn't have a go at the iron rations. But it's too risky; so we try to get a wink of sleep. Kropp divides a cigarette and hands me half. Tjaden gives an account of his national dish--broad-beans and bacon. He despises it when not flavoured with bog-myrtle, and, "for God's sake, let it all be cooked together, not the potatoes, the beans, and the bacon separately." Someone growls that he will pound Tjaden into bog-myrtle if he doesn't shut up. Then all becomes quiet in the big room--only the candles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles and the artilleryman spitting every now and then. We stir a bit as the door opens and Kat appears. I think I must be dreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and a blood-stained sandbag full of horse-flesh in his hand. The artilleryman's pipe drops from his mouth. He feels the bread. "Real bread, by God! and still hot too!" Kat gives no explanation. He has the bread, the rest doesn't matter. I'm sure that if he were planted down in the middle of the desert, in half an hour he would have gathered together a supper of roast meat, dates, and wine. "Cut some wood," he says curtly to Haie. Then he hauls out a frying-pan from under his coat, and a handful of salt as well as a lump of fat from his pocket. He has thought of everything. Haie makes a fire on the floor. It lights up the empty room of the factory. We climb out of bed. The artilleryman hesitates. He wonders whether to praise Kat and so perhaps gain a little for himself. But Katczinsky doesn't even see him, he might as well be thin air. He goes off cursing. Kat knows the way to roast horse-flesh so that it's tender. It shouldn't be put straight into the pan, that makes it tough. It should be boiled first in a little water. With our knives we squat round in a circle and fill our bellies. That is Kat. If for but one hour in a year something eatable were to be had in some one place only, within that hour, as if moved by a vision, he would put on his cap, go out and walk directly there, as though following a compass, and find it. He finds everything--if it is cold, a small stove and wood, hay and straw, a table and chairs--but above all food. It is uncanny; one would think he conjured it out of the air. His masterpiece was four boxes of lobsters. Admittedly we would rather have had a good beef steak. * * We have settled ourselves on the sunny side of the hut. There is a smell of tar, of summer, and of sweaty feet. Kat sits beside me. He wants to talk. To-day we have been practising saluting because Tjaden failed to salute a major. Kat can't get it out of his head. "You see, we are losing the war because we can salute too well," he