The faces of the whistlers, however, cleared at once. With cheering and consoling nods, as though they knew all about it long ago and were in secret possession of chosen remedies for this very case, they corroborated all that he could say; and Pointner with long deliberation felt his lean neck with his supple fingers, while with a collected expression he stared past him into a corner. Fürlein, meanwhile, glanced shyly at the white bibs that surrounded him—from beneath which a slender cheeping and rustling sounded from time to time. Finally they all clapped him on the shoulder and told him to cheer up. “The old ’un will soon see to it,” they said, and looked meaningly at one another. Then they conducted him to his bed, and Kollin went hastily to the cupboard and returned with one of the striped linen garments such as they all wore.
Fürlein’s condition seemed to grow worse during the next days; more and more frequently he had to struggle with slight attacks of suffocation, and sometimes even swallowing gave him trouble. But Doctor Quint did nothing with him for the time. He was going to wait a bit longer, he said, with an impenetrable expression. The whistlers, however, had already decided that Fürlein was destined to be one of them. Kollin, on the very first day, had suggested to the theatre-sister, whom he helped in cleaning the instruments, that she should see to it, and quickly, that the Jäger got his tube, and she had declined abruptly to have anything to do with it. Now they tried Fürlein. The three of them gathered in the evening at his bedside and began talking to him intimately, kindly and also a little patronisingly. It was as though they had a rare favour to bestow. Fürlein, who had been in secret fear of something like this, plaintively shook his head.
Gradually, however, the whistlers, who had set their hearts on it, won on his confidence, though at the cost of indefatigable efforts, and persuaded him to look at their tubes with a mixture of curiosity and aversion. He was still heartily afraid of the operation, but at the same time he began to put his trust in it, and his impatience became more and more apparent. After it was over he would soon be quite at his ease. He actually looked forward to the time, he assured them with a helpless smile. The whistlers enthusiastically concurred. Did they not breathe more freely and easily than ever, perhaps, in their lives? No one could have any notion who was not himself a whistler. Kollin raised his bib, drew a deep breath and exhaled it again with a triumphant air, while he fanned to and fro with his hand in front of the little opening. Benjamin, for his part, did not know how to say enough for the undisturbed sleep he could enjoy at any hour. As a prompt demonstration he got into bed in his clothes and covered himself over up to his neck. He put the large pillow over his face till nothing was to be seen of him. But through a little gap between the bed clothes and the pillow he breathed in at his tube, and Fürlein looked with all his eyes at this marvellous phenomenon that had so uncanny a fascination for him.
His days were happy now. He began to learn, as they called it, and drew out the inner tubes from the whistlers’ necks and cleaned them. Or he cut out new bibs for them and neatly pinned them on. And the whistlers made him returns. He was permitted to be the first to read the paper; many a choice morsel to which the kitchen maids gave them a secret priority was allotted him, and they poured him out a double allowance of the beer or wine which occasionally found its way to their room by the channel of private munificence.
At length early one summer morning, before seven o’clock, Fürlein was sent for to the operating theatre, and the whistlers, much elated, conducted him a part of the way. But against all expectation, he came back after a quarter of an hour while they were still busily employed making his bed ready and putting the blocks under its feet at the lower end; for those who were operated upon in the neck had at first to lie with their heads lower than their feet, in case the blood ran into the ramifications of the windpipe. Fürlein came back, not on the wheeled stretcher, but on his feet as he had gone, and he had not, either, any bandage on his neck. Doctor Quint had sent a strong electric current through his throat and suddenly ordered him to shout. Immediately Jäger Fürlein uttered a loud shout, and now he could speak and breathe again as of old. He explained all this to the whistlers with downcast eyes, and they heard him without making a sound. He had a fine rousing voice. So much it was easy to hear though he took great pains to damp it down.
“It’s all for the best, comrade,” said Fürlein at last to each one of the circle round him, and held out his hand. The whistlers slowly recovered themselves and with forced smiles offered their congratulations. After that they betook themselves all three to the park for their rest in the open air; Fürlein in any case could not accompany them, for he was to be sent at once to his unit at the base and had to pack up his effects. Also he had the pretext of having his papers put in order. When they came in again at mid-day, the Jäger was no longer there. He had gone without saying good-bye, and the whistlers readily understood. But they never spoke of him any more.
IX
In the third autumn of the war, however, a fourth comrade was added to the whistlers in earnest. One afternoon Sister Emily, a red-cheeked Valkyrie of uncertain age, came in and laid a heap of clean clothes on the fourth bed that since Fürlein’s departure had stood unmade up in the corner.
“Early to-morrow there’s a new whistler coming, and a real one this time,” she said in her robust tones, as she turned down the sheet over the heavy blanket, “and what d’you think—it’s an English prisoner.”
The whistlers pricked up their ears and shook their heads. Pointner noisily pushed back his chair and laid down his spoon. “No,” he said loudly, and the other two showed their indignation in their faces.
“It’s not a bit of use,” said Sister Emily emphatically, and shook up the pillow. “He has been shot through the throat like you, and there’s nowhere else for him to go for treatment. So you must just put up with him.”
Herewith she pulled a piece of chalk out of the pocket of her apron and wrote on the nameplate at the head of the empty bed. “Harry Flint” was now to be read there; and below, where in other cases a man’s rank was stated—“Englishman.” Pointner still signified his distaste with one or two gestures of his hands, and brought the coffee jug threateningly down on the table. Then he rammed his cap down on one side and went out into the garden, spitting with rage like a cat.
The next morning when the whistlers were sitting over their breakfast, the door slowly opened and there entered a round-faced boy with large brown eyes and thick blue-black hair. In his hand he held a small bundle about the size of a head of cabbage. He wore the hospital uniform of blue and white striped linen, and over it a kind of round cape. On his head was an utterly washed-out cap of the same material and far too small for him. It was Harry Flint, in German Heini Kieselstein, or simply Kiesel, of the Gloucesters. He stood blushing in the doorway, and, putting his hand to his cap by way of greeting, made at the same time something like a slight bow. After that he remained fixed in an appealing attitude, his hands laid one over the other at the level of his waist, and looked steadily at the three whistlers with a mixture of shame, pride and fear.
The whistlers did not appear to see him. Each looked straight in front of him over his cup, and so contrived to avoid the eyes of the others. After a while Harry once more saluted, and his eyes began to fill with tears. Pointner sat mouthing a large piece of soaked bread with a long knife in his hand, and at this he jerked the knife over his shoulder in the direction of the vacant bed. Harry Flint betook himself there at once and sat down gingerly on the edge of it, as though he desired to show that he made the least possible claim on the air space of the room. Directly afterwards the whistlers got up all together for a walk in the garden, and left the rifleman to himself without deigning to cast him a glance.
When they came back again at mid-day they found Harry sweeping out the room with a broom and shovel that he had found for himself. It was now apparent that he wore his tube in his neck without any protective covering and secured only by a th
in cord. It looked as though he had a large metal button or a screw stuck in the front of his throat. Kollin shook his head and went up to him, and, leading him by the sleeve to the cupboard at his bedside, took a clean piece of muslin out of the drawer and pinned it carefully and neatly under his chin. Harry, who had stood without a movement, took a small looking-glass from his pocket and looked at himself with delight. Then he rummaged in his bundle and produced a stick of chocolate and offered it to Kollin. Kollin gave it a passing glance and quietly shook his head. Harry bit his lip and turned away.
At this time food was scarce in Germany, and white bread, cake, meat and imported fruit had vanished. Harry, however, had no lack of them. Soon after his arrival a large parcel of otherwise unprocurable food came for him from an English Prisoners of War Committee in Switzerland, and regularly every third and fourth day came another. Harry handed it all round in the friendliest way—smoked bacon, wurst in cans, butter in tin tubes, biscuits with nuts and almonds, and white bread with brown and shining crust. But though the whistlers had long forgotten their hatred of Great Britain, they obstinately refused to touch even a morsel of it.
It was not always their loss. For sometimes the parcels were a long time on the road, and then there was a dangerous hissing and effervescing when Harry stuck in the tin-opener. The meat smelled like bad cheese, and the bread was not to be cut with any knife. This put the whistlers in the best of moods. They surrounded the table on which Harry had spread his treasures, and in the mixture of German and English that had become meanwhile the common whistler lingo, passed the severest criticisms on England and English products. “What muck!” they croaked, and showed their disgust by holding their noses. This was always a disconcerting moment for Harry. He could not admit that Britain presented a Briton with bad fare. With indignant eyes he soaked his bread in his soup and rubbed salt in the putrid meat. And then he swallowed it all down, and patting his stomach endeavoured to show by his face how much he enjoyed it. Often, however, he turned pale and hurried out and vomited long and painfully for the honour of Great Britain.
The originator of the common German-English whistler-language was Benjamin. After he had overcome his first modesty he brought forward his grammar-school English and initiated Harry into the usages and rules of the hospital, and in particular of the whistlers’ room. He instructed him also in the art of speaking, or rather croaking, by stopping the mouth of the tube with the finger-tip, and began to teach him a little German. Harry was a quick pupil, and soon transformed himself from the dumb and constrained foreigner into a friend who was always ready for a talk. The whistlers got to be very fond of him.
One day he confided to Benjamin that he was married. A war-marriage, he called it. He was twenty and Mrs. Flint of Gloucester a little over sixteen. Benjamin had often found him seated on his bed in the act, apparently, of smelling, or indeed tasting, a sheet of note paper, and had been at a loss for the explanation. And now Harry revealed it. Mrs. Flint was allowed by the censorship to send no more than four sides of note paper to her prisoner husband every week. But writing was no easy task for her; she had, as Harry confessed, first to set about learning how to do it. For this reason each letter contained no more than one or two laboured sentences, traced in large letters on lines previously ruled out. The remaining space, three and a half sides, was covered with small neatly formed crosses. Each one of them, Harry explained, betokened a kiss of wedded love. Harry loyally responded to each. Even in the darkness of the night his lips often met those of his far-distant wife on the paper. Benjamin, whose bed was opposite his, could hear the rustling folds and the sighs of the prisoner. Once he got up and groped his way across to console him with a joke. But Harry quickly pulled the bedclothes over his head because his face was wet with tears.
X
Not long after, as winter drew on, Pointner became bedridden. His heart began to feel the strain of the poison that circled in his veins. Yet he was very happy at that time. He lay quietly and without pain in bed and read until far into the night. True, he was soon at an end with the love and murder stories in the library, but, to make up, a thick volume containing the complete fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, that Benjamin had taken out one day, became his inseparable companion. Over and over again he read with a blissful smile the stories of Fitcher’s bird, of Jorinda and Joringel, of Rapunzel, of the Blue Light, and the old man made young again, although he knew them now by heart; and Benjamin marvelled over him, while Kollin sadly shook his head. Sometimes he laughed silently to himself and laid the book for a while in his lap, but not for a moment letting it out of his hands; or he beckoned Benjamin to him and laying his finger on the title of the story handed him the book without a word. Lying quietly on his side he watched his expression closely, and when then lay back again, waved his head to and fro and shook with laughter.
Benjamin smiled his whole face lit up; then he sat up and croaked:
“Als hinaus
Nach des Herrn Korbes seimem Haus.”
or
“Sind wir nicht Knaben glatt und fein,
Was wollen wir länger Schuster sein?”1
Often when the other two had gone for a walk, Harry Flint sat for hours together by his bed and took care of him. He cleaned his tube, put him a clean bib under his chin, gave him a drink, and pulled his bed clothes straight; or else he just sat still and communicated something of his own vitality by his mere presence. It got so far that Pointner did not even persist in refusing the cakes of white flour from Great Britain. Harry soaked them in milk and gave them to him in a spoon.
It happened thus. One morning there had been an unexpected inspection of the drawers of the bedside cupboards, and in each one the Sister found a broken packet of beautiful English short-bread. She took a piece of it and exclaimed how good it was. But the whistlers went very red, and Harry Flint went reddest of all and hastily left the room: for he had gone by night to each one’s bed, to-day to Benjamin’s, to-morrow to Kollin’s, and last to Pointner’s, and given a packet to each of them in turn. Thereupon the whistlers could hold out no longer, and also each thought he was the only one who secretly beneath his bed clothes nibbled at the honour of the Fatherland. From that morning they assisted Harry without any disguise to demolish the white bread and the admirable wurst. It benefited Harry too, for he could now confess it openly when the bacon was bad or the butter rancid, and was no longer under the necessity of making himself ill.
One day, when the two were alone together, Pointner took his English cap out of its hiding place and put it on Harry’s head. Harry stood motionless with head erect and beamed with delight. It was his dearest wish to possess this cap. Among the various buildings of the hospital, which in peace time was a State clinic, there were some devoted to patients from the civil population. They wore the same patient’s uniform as the soldiers but for the military caps, and this distinction was so punctiliously preserved that a soldier-patient was seldom seen without his cap. When occasion demanded they had them on their heads even in bed. Harry, too, was a soldier, but he was no longer in possession of an English cap, and as he could not wear a German one, he was compelled to go about bareheaded, or else in that little boy’s cap of linen, and to let himself be taken for a civilian patient. He suffered the more because nearly all the civilians of his age and height were at that time in the skin clinic, which was called the Ritterburg and given as wide a berth as possible.
Even the soldiers who had to have temporary quarters there, were left during that time to themselves. Moreover it was there that the so-called Ritter-fräulein—women of ill-fame from the town—were subjected to compulsory cure. They were not permitted to leave the floor assigned to them except on rare occasions; though it was said that they swung their cavaliers up to their rooms at night by means of ropes of twisted sheets. However the rest might enjoy these tales and find in them an inexhaustible topic of conversation, not one of them would have anything to do with the building or
its occupants, let alone being mistaken for one of them.
The trouble was that Pointner could not bring himself to part with his trophy. But he allowed Harry to wear it now and then when no one was about. There was nothing then that Harry more eagerly desired than to be taken by surprise with the cap on his head. But no sooner was a step heard outside, than Pointner whipped it away and hid it under the clothes. He promised him, however, that he would leave him the cap at his death. He gave Harry his hand on it, and Harry grasped it in token of acceptance and stood to attention with a solemn and ceremonial air. It was soon to come true.
* * *
1“We are going to the house of Herr Korbes”
“Now we are boys so fine to see,
Why should we longer cobblers be?”
These are lines from two of Grimm’s fairytales, Herr Korbes (Mr Korbes) and Die Wichtelmänner (The Elves) respectively.
XI
Before that, however, Benjamin himself had to go to the Ritterburg. One day, to his horror, he discovered inexplicable and painful symptoms on his body. But from shame he could not confide to anybody the state he was in; he kept silence in the desperate hope that the malady would pass over of itself, and that one morning he would wake up healed and cleansed as though it had all been a dream. But the pain only got worse and loathsome spots began to spread all over his body. At last there was nothing for it but to tell Herr Mauch all about it—perhaps he would be able to help him without Doctor Quint and the Sister needing to know anything of it.
The Whistlers' Room Page 5
