Schlump

by Hans Herbert Grimm

  ‘Shit,’ Michel said, stomping off.

  •

  Spring had sprung – near the artillery at the rear a few daisies were in flower – and brought with it the offensive. In the days prior to this, the Tommies had regularly practised their barrage every morning from five till six. But one day the shelling didn’t stop. The trenches were soon shot to pieces, the dugouts filled in, and the soldiers lay defenceless in the shell holes, which filled with blood and water. After a few days the Tommies switched their fire to the third line, and the German soldiers awaited their attack. The man who’d gone to fetch the food had been right: they weren’t going to be relieved, they would have to hold on to the last man. But the attack didn’t come, and instead the Tommies sprayed the front line with heavy shells and mortars, driving the soldiers to the point of madness.

  Schlump sprang from one shell hole to another, always to the newest because that was where they thought they’d be safest. Behind the hill on the other side, the thunder of artillery was continuous, and at night they could see the bright flash of the shots. They soon got to know each one of the Tommies’ batteries by its individual flash, and they knew whenever one stopped from time to time. They also had a rough idea of where each battery concentrated its fire. Supplies came only intermittently through the barrage, and the men suffered from severe thirst and hunger. Once some soldiers from another regiment came and brought them coffee in heavy steel pails. The poor fellows leapt from one shell hole to the next. Some of the men got swelling in their testicles, which made them howl with pain. It was horrible to watch. Schlump had become a bundle of nerves from the constant fear of the rotten shells. He wanted to get out of this mess at any price.

  Finally his opportunity came.

  The Tommies had broken into section A and sealed off the trench with sandbag barricades. On either side lay heaps of dead and critically injured soldiers over a metre high, forming a new barricade. The first and third companies had been completely wiped out. The rest were going to launch a counteroffensive. The assault troops were ready. More volunteers were being sought from each company. Michel, of course, was one, and Schlump offered his services too.

  They assembled in the limestone quarry to the rear. They’d had to cross a fallow field which the Tommies kept under constant fire. Rifles in hand, they raced across one by one with their kitbags, hotly pursued by shells. They were sweating like pigs by the time they made it. The quarry was a grisly sight. This was where they’d always come to fetch their food. It was full of blood, bandages, boots, bloody gas masks and broken rifles.

  It was Sunday. The assault was to begin at five o’clock. Schlump fetched a few more hand grenades. They fell in at three o’clock. The lieutenant of the assault troops bid farewell to the adjutant of the third battalion, which was stationed back there. The lieutenant was wearing glasses, behind which a pair of good-natured blue eyes looked out. He was a secondary school teacher. They set off in the sun, which was warm and shining brightly. They sprang from shell hole to shell hole. They advanced and veered left. Here lay a multitude of corpses – Germans and British, all mixed together. At one point they’d collected in a heap, as if in death they were trying to warm themselves. All were lying on their stomachs, heads turned to the side, revealing their greenish faces, teeth glinting faintly between pairs of black lips. Rifles, gas masks, everything in a muddle, soaked in blood, everywhere blood and more blood. A section of trench wall was still standing, above which hung a telephone wire. They had to stoop. Schlump knocked into an officer’s yellow legging. On the end was a shoe, and in it a leg. The flesh had been cut off clean with the legging. There was nothing else to be seen of the officer.

  Four thirty.

  The artillery was to start firing at four fifty and go on till five o’clock sharp, then stop at a stroke. At five the assault was to begin. In the meantime the Tommies were sending over at irregular intervals some seriously heavy ordnance, which exploded with a horrific din. Large stones flew around their heads and plugged in the mud. They crouched down. Schlump squatted in a fresh shell hole and smoked the last cigar his father had sent him.

  Four fifty! Behind them the artillery burst into life. But what was happening? They were firing too short. It was all landing amongst their own infantry! Flares! Now the Tommies started shelling too. This was hell on earth! Without waiting for orders, they stormed forwards, the lieutenant at the head. He opened his mouth wide; he was about to shout something. But then his body jack-knifed, and his steel helmet rolled away in front of him. Dead, the first one. Schlump just kept running, beside him Michel. They yelled something without knowing what or why. There, about twenty paces in front of them, stood the Tommies, not moving. They were paralytic, shooting one rifle grenade after another. You couldn’t hear them explode amidst the infernal racket.

  Suddenly Schlump collapsed. He could feel pain, he didn’t know where, but he couldn’t get to his feet again. Beside him Michel stormed on. He wasn’t hit by any bullets. Now he had reached the Tommies. With a skilful blow he knocked the rifle from the hands of one of them. But what was he doing? He tossed his own rifle away and grabbed the Tommy with both hands as if about to embark on a wrestling bout. The Tommy was a head taller than Michel and very broad. The two of them fought as the others blustered past. Michel must have superhuman strength. With his right arm he clamps the Tommy to his chest, freeing up his left hand. Grabbing a grenade from his belt, he rams it between himself and the enemy. He presses him more tightly to his chest. He pulls out the white pin with his teeth! Now! Now – both men are blown to bits!

  Michel’s head rolls where they’ve just been fighting, ending the right way up. Eyes wide open, it looks over at Schlump, appearing as if it is trying to smile.

  •

  Schlump lay unconscious amongst the corpses on the battlefield. Around him was blood, more blood, bloody scraps, human limbs and equipment stained dark by blood.

  It was daytime when he woke up. The Tommies had switched their barrage back to the third line again, second position. But they were scattering the entire area with shells and shrapnel. Schlump felt an agonising pain in his left shoulder. He couldn’t move his arm. His legs had slipped into a hole that led down into a caved-in dugout. He could feel blood trickling down his back and his right thigh was swollen, but he couldn’t see an entry wound. Perhaps he’d been bruised by a stray sliver of a shell. Then something landed right next to him, stones flew about his head! He jolted in shock, forgot everything else, and scurried away. By the ruins of a concrete bunker he collapsed. But he quickly regained consciousness, and now the shelling was more intense. He stood up in indescribable pain and looked around for a stretcher-bearer. He was dreadfully thirsty. But he couldn’t see anybody. No comrades, no stretcher-bearers, nor any sign of the Tommies. Only corpses lay around him, blood had turned the earth red or black, and the shells landing around him exploded with a hellish racket.

  Frightened to death, he listened out for each and every shot. All his senses were on high alert, and his ears could distinguish every sound in spite of the crazy noise. His fingernails dug into the limestone; he was sweating with fear. Another shell landed near him, and again he leapt up and rushed away. He ran as far as the sandbag barricade, which was piled with corpses to the top.

  All of a sudden he heard a voice. Four men were lying in a huge shell hole with a machine gun. With superhuman strength he crawled over to them and begged for water. But they had nothing; they’d been without rations for three days. Cutting up his coat, they clumsily gave him some rudimentary bandaging. At the bottom of the shell hole swilled a nauseating cocktail of blood, water and all sorts of other muck. Unable to stop himself, Schlump took a drink from the puddle. The others hauled him away. He started to rant and rave, and they had to hold him down.

  Two men had gone off with mess tins. Maybe they’d be able to find something. Schlump sprang up and ran after them. There was a loud ringing in his head, and he felt as if he were blind drunk. Then, in front of
him where the two men were walking, a shell landed right on an old dugout. Schlump saw the beams collapse, and stone and mud fly. He kept running towards a huge pile of rocks and limestone. As he hurried over, he heard terrible cries from beneath him: ‘Comrade, help me, please, please help me!’ Scourged, he moved on. He toppled, and felt as if he were plummeting into a deep dark abyss.

  When he came to, the sun was on the horizon beneath a layer of grey-black cloud. He was lying on the steps to a dugout. Maybe there was something to drink down there! He crawled down, gritting his teeth against the unbearable pain. Below were some soldiers on slatted bunks. He touched them, but got no response; they were all dead. Rats scuttled past him. Horrified, he crawled out as quickly as he could, then lay down for a considerable while.

  The enemy batteries were firing like fury on the second position. Schlump forced himself to his feet once more and ran away. He didn’t care any more; he’d rather die in an instant than perish miserably here.

  He raced through the feverish barrage, through the second position. All that remained were shell holes where soldiers he didn’t know were crouched. Shells whistled past him, plugged in the ground and exploded, sending up stones, heavy rocks. Splinters hissed! Crash! Bang! Wheeee! Death howled blood red before his eyes, jets of flames sizzled green and yellow. Back, keep going back, past our artillery, on and on, as if chased by a thousand furies. Where was he getting his strength from? He didn’t know what was driving him on.

  At last he’d made it beyond the main bombardment, although the Tommies would send over the occasional large shell in the direction of where he was now. He wasn’t looking for the field hospital any longer; he just kept running to the rear without any idea of where he was. He maintained a straight line, always eastwards. Then, in an instant, his strength vanished. He dragged himself forwards with great difficulty, stopping to lie down every metre or so.

  Thus the hours passed, and the night. He didn’t know where he’d gone, nor for how long. Before him, a dim light started to appear on the horizon. He came to a small wood and sat on a fallen tree.

  There, from a bush not far away, he heard the most wonderful song. A nightingale was pouring out every ounce of joy from its tiny heart. So wistfully, so beautifully, so blissfully, as if things such as love and happiness really did still exist in the world. Now Schlump saw his home again; he saw his mother kissing him – he was sitting on her knee and she was singing him the songs she knew. The lights from the passing vehicles danced on his bedroom ceiling. It was cosily warm in the room and he fell asleep at her breast. Then he heard music; it was coming from the Reichsadler. He watched the girls dancing. One of them waved at him, and he went outside into the warm, sultry night, beneath the trees. There he held her in his arms. ‘You’re Johanna, aren’t you?’ he said. She whispered to him that they should dance together and then she’d like to go home with him.

  Schlump lay on his stomach on the moss by the fallen tree. His head was turned to the side and his cheeks were glowing red; he was feverish. His bloody shirt and bandaging showed through his cut-up uniform.

  •

  When Schlump woke again, his head was nestled on white pillows and a white sheet covered his body. Some artillery troops had picked him up, the medical orderlies told him, and carried him on their wagon.

  He was soon put on to a stretcher and taken to the operating theatre. On the steps he passed a lance corporal from the medical corps, carrying over his shoulder a bare leg as if it were a rifle, and making a joke of it. Schlump was laid out on the operating table and a nurse put a gas mask over his face. It wasn’t long before he was dreaming again.

  Once more Schlump was back home, but this time at the fair, where one carousel after another was turning round and round. The music was a jumble of burbling, gurgling and tinkling, with the occasional brash and throaty whistle of a traction engine. The girls were sitting on the wooden horses, holding their skirts above the knee, and laughing. All of a sudden Schlump saw Monsieur Doby beside him. They pushed and thrust their way through the throng of people and stopped outside a cinematographic theatre. The sun had just set, and the countless electric lamps shone in the clear dark blue sky. They were standing by the band – a delicate and friendly-looking gentleman made of wood, in buckled shoes and half-stockings, beat out time. Next to him massive placards had been erected, on which Schlump saw huge pictures of Michel, the famous Michel, removing the grenade pin with his teeth and blowing himself and the Tommy into the air.

  Schlump took Monsieur Doby by the arm and guided him into the cinema. They sat on the front bench, where all the soldiers were sitting, and looked around. In the corner at the back he noticed sweet little Nelly, who gave him a smile and waved with her handkerchief. In front of the white screen sat the band, making a dreadful racket that sounded like bombs and shells going off. Beside the band stood a tall man in a black coat covered in stars. He was holding a baton and on his head was an incredibly tall pointed cone, on which the sun and the moon and all the constellations revolved. The man stared down his nose at Schlump through a pair of huge black spectacles. The lights went out and the screen started to flicker. Large writing appeared which Schlump couldn’t read. Then he saw inside a house where a gaggle of pretty girls were rocking back and forth on soldiers’ knees. And these soldiers wore expressions of bliss as they hugged their beauties. In the middle stood Michel, the famous Michel, playing the fiddle.

  Now the buffoon in black next to the band started talking. Poking the screen with his baton, he spoke with a ridiculous trumpeting voice: ‘Private Michael from the machine-gunners had a glint in his eye! He always seemed to be chewing a curse in his teeth. For six days the company rested up. For six days they brought him food in the girls’ house, where he played his fiddle for six days and six nights. Sometimes it would sob, then all the girls would weep, indeed the entire house would weep.’ The black figure tapped the screen with his baton, and Schlump could see Michel playing beautifully and all the girls weeping. The man in black continued: ‘Occasionally his fiddle would flog the girls, then they would go wild, indeed the entire house would go wild. And flames would dart from his eyes.’ He tapped the screen with his baton once more, and they saw the girls dancing in a frenzy, and the flames flickering from Michel’s eyes. The man in black continued: ‘On the sixth night his fiddle came to life and the girls screamed blue murder. Michel tossed his bow into a corner, grabbed the girls, who were hanging on to him as if he were a deity, and danced with them.’

  The man in black tapped the screen again. It grew light and Schlump looked around. Sweet little Nelly had vanished, the others too; it was just him and Monsieur Doby left. Schlump was keen to leave – he was starting to freeze – but the man in black knocked his baton yet again, the lights went out, and he carried on: ‘The following evening they returned to the trenches. A cold wind blew from the darkness. No one said a word. Just the spades knocking against their legs. Coughing. Stumbling. Cursing. Shells exploded with great frequency, streaking red in the sky, mocking the soldiers. Artillery posts, black lumps, leaned against dead walls, silent. Machine guns barked in the distance. Suddenly cannons burst into fire behind them. Every one of them jumped in shock. Shells flew sighing into the distance. The company froze in cold holes. Michael wandered about the barbed-wire entanglements. Fear crept over the tormented clods of earth, choking the men beneath their steel helmets. The stars twinkled craftily and betrayed all the peoples on earth. Death lay in wait everywhere. Michael bent over the enemy trench and stared down. Dropped like a spider on to the double sentry post. Shot one of the guards in the stomach, strangled the other. Dragged the dying soldiers through the barbed wire, shrill screams piercing the night. Flares hissed into the sky, machine guns rattled, mortars boomed, shells, bombs, flames, yells, hisses, bangs, screams: All hell has been let loose, all hell has been let loose! The earth rocked. Michael stood amongst the barbed wire, shaking his fist, laughing monstrously and viciously.

  ‘Michael raged amon
gst the barbed wire for twelve days and twelve nights, then it was time to return to the girls’ house. And Michael played his fiddle for six days and six nights. The following evening it was back to the trenches. Winter and summer, winter and summer, never ending.’

  •

  The nurse had not yet removed the mask. The gas poured into his blood, poisoning it. And his heart pumped the blood up to his brain, which was neatly coiled beneath his skull, sending the anaesthetic deep into his tiny cells. His soul freed itself from its fetters, and Schlump floated between life and death. His dream became deeper and stranger.

  Schlump had been obliged to go through everything again, as if they wanted to torture him with it. Now the film broke and on the white screen a phrase appeared that he couldn’t read. Then he saw a railway train rolling through the darkness. The windows were lit up and he could see soldiers asleep inside. The man in black knocked the screen with his baton again, and it resounded: ‘The locomotive sent long piercing screams into the night. Then the silent roar of the darkness. The wheels kept rolling, onwards, onwards, ever onwards. The soldiers were wrapped in their coats and huddled together, snoring and moaning in their sleep. Michael woke up. Stared into the night. Dead towns drifted by, forgotten lights. Iron bridges slapped the wheels with a thunderous rhythm. Below, the alien river breathed gloomily with mysterious blue sparks. Pain hovered over the country, sucking up the plain and suffocating the silent forests. Michael grabbed his fiddle and, wielding the bow gently, played with such incredible delicacy that no one could hear. He played the song of suffering. His fiddle drew magical circles. The night sank slowly. People crawled down, far down like poor animals. And above stood the blue mountains, radiating eternal bliss, where the winds were like symphonies, where beauty dwelled in golden meadows, where joy was enthroned in temples, where sublime purity lived, where . . .’