Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  In the elaborate parlance of the German army, inspection means the ceremonial assembly of a company of men in its entirety in the barracks yard. Anyone who can move has to be there, even clerks from the orderly room and those from the ‘sick bay’ who are only a little ill. At 10 to 6 precisely, then, the company filled the empty space enclosed by the barracks, forming a horseshoe comprised of three columns. The roll call ceremony took place. Everyone was there – except the company commander, who kept them all waiting.

  The ASC men were meticulously arranged and ordered according to size, with the giant Hildebrandt on the far left of the first column and tiny Vehse, Strauß and Naumann II furthest to the right, but an essential something was nonetheless missing, and Lieutenant Graßnick could never quite get over it. Their tunics spoiled the picture. It had started in Küstrin in Brandenburg – heavy Prussian Army Litevkas in dark grey with red lapels. Then came several dozen milky grey tunics made of a coat fabric meant for military officials. In Serbia, they’d received a batch of greyish brown infantry tunics, red about the seams from repeated delousings. Then finally in Rosenheim in Bavaria, on the way here, the depot had splashed out on a few dozen artillery tunics made of a greenish material with black piping. When the men were at work or marching, it didn’t matter. But these kinds of colour games were too risky for the parade ground… The grey field caps and blue cord epaulettes made no difference. More than half a million German men were running around like this: Landstrum reservists with no weapons, workers, salesmen, intellectuals. Not in great physical shape, but with a little military drilling. The combat units’ work slaves. Soldiers and yet not soldiers. A pitiful joke and essential troops rolled into one.

  ‘Attention! Company – eyes left!’

  The company froze. Acting Lieutenant Graßnick, whom the men nicknamed Panje of Vranje after the small town in the Serbian mountains where he’d spent his best days, approached at an easy pace. The company tailors had done everything in their power to make a proper officer of him. His tunic hugged his back perfectly, his high grey cap with its silver cockade was perched impressively above his red face and his epaulettes looked almost as good as a real lieutenant’s. But to the actual officers he was still just a jumped-up sergeant major, and so he wafted about in a lonely void somewhere between the promoted men and the ruling class.

  ‘At ease!’ he croaked. ‘Listen up, everyone.’

  He received the communications, accepting a piece of paper from Herr Glinksy, to whom it had in turn been handed by the clerk Sperlich, rigid with obedience, and read what was on it: a Fifth Army brigade order. The men learnt that the great attack planned for 5 May had been betrayed by Alsatian deserters, and that this had now been confirmed by French prisoners. They were reminded of their duty to be discrete even when chatting to one another, on the train or writing home.

  The men stood there, trying to keep a straight face. For God’s sake, they thought. The silly French naturally hadn’t noticed that the German army planned to shower its princely leader with successful attacks and captured trenches for his birthday. Obviously, no one over there had any idea that the crown prince was born on 6 May. General Pétain had to rely on deserters – and from Alsace to boot – to alert him to the forthcoming attacks. There were two Alsatians in the company, one young, one older, both exceptionally good workers and popular comrades. ‘Alsatian traitors’ thus sounded particularly tactful. Yes, the Prussians had imbibed tact in spades. But it looked like Panje of Vranje was finishing up now in his croaking lieutenant’s voice. God help him. Amen.

  But no. ‘Unfortunately,’ Herr Graßnick continued, flapping his hands excitedly, ‘unfortunately, an unprecedented lapse occurred right here in my company this afternoon. Private Bertin, step out 30 paces. Forward march!’

  A twitch ran through the company, like a horse or a dog pricking up its ears. Watch out, it said. This concerns us. Such a huge body of 500 souls is very sensitive to matters of honour and shame, and in certain circumstances one individual represents the group. It took Bertin a second to grasp what was happening. He blushed, then blanched under his black beard. Only then did he move. He hadn’t expected to be plucked from among his comrades like a frog in a stork’s beak. But a soldier should be prepared for anything, as Herr Graßnick was about to teach him.

  ‘Didn’t you hear?’ he trumpeted into the profound silence that always descended when someone was to be punished. ‘By the rear – march!’

  Obedient as a well trained dog, the trainee lawyer Bertin turned, marched round the right wing of his, the third column and breathing heavily came to halt back in his place.

  ‘Private Bertin, 30 paces, forward march!’

  In his neatly blackened boots, Bertin sprang forward again. After 30 paces, he took position diagonally to the right of the company commander. Graßnick gave him a wry glance, looked him over and ordered him to: ‘About turn!’ The soldier swung round. Sweat ran down his glasses. Perhaps the blood was pounding in his eyes. The company rose around him like the three walls of a room under construction, the rows of his comrades in their different greys topped by a reddish strip: their faces caught in the sunlight. It was hard to feel so many eyes upon him, but there was nothing to be done about it. Why hadn’t he followed Karl Lebehde’s advice and shaved off this bloody beard that stood out like black Sauerkraut? Now he was going to pay for his obstinacy. But that fellow Graßnick could rattle on as much as he liked. What Bertin had done was right by both military and human law. Comforting prisoners was in the Bible, as was giving the thirsty to drink. It didn’t matter what happened now. He was at one with himself and the moral code in his heart. Still, he couldn’t stop his knees shaking slightly. Good that his wide trousers hid it.

  ‘This man,’ crowed Herr Graßnick with a forced snarl, ‘this man here had the effrontery to allow French prisoners to drink from his canteen, although the colonel had expressly forbidden it. I leave it to each of you to decide what to call such unworthy conduct. One can only describe such a man as a stain on the company.’

  ‘Am I in the pillory here?’ wondered the black-bearded soldier, unable to stop his nose and forehead turning a sickly grey. His sticky-out ears felt like they had when he was at school and Herr Kosch the teacher pulled them. But because he was at peace with himself, he was able to feel sorry for the superior officer to his left. A town clerk from Lausitz disguised as an officer. The ruling class would never take him seriously, and yet he had to stand there blaring on in his staccato voice, trying to sound convincing between long pauses. He was about as well suited to this as spinach to a grater. Yes, he heard Graßnick croak, Bertin’s behaviour was all the worse because he was an educated man of whom better might have been expected. He’d set a bad example to his comrades. Fortunately, his example did not extend to the whole company. The company’s morale was good. Those in higher places were well aware of that. Drastic measures to put a stop to these kinds of incidents once and for all would therefore not be necessary.

  Can you put a stop to an incident? wondered Bertin but he was breathing more easily. A couple of curious gunners from the ammunitions depot staff were now watching this carry-on at the labour company scornfully. A light wind from the west carried the scent of hay. On the other side of the stream, some emaciated artillery horses were being nursed back to health in a big tent. The drivers were cutting the tall, sweet grass in preparation for winter. For a moment, Bertin almost lost himself in this illusory peaceful world – framed by the dull thud and clash of the artillery battle on the other side of the horizon. So, these are the kinds of things our company is worrying about at the siege outside Verdun, he thought. Why would a man like me worry about this rubbish? There he stood, black-haired and pale, heels together, hands on his trouser seams, letting the clatter of Graßnick’s closing remarks wash over him. Hopefully he realised that he deserved a court martial for what he’d done, Graßnick said. However, as his behaviour to date had been passable, justice would be tempered with mercy – and he’d better re
member this favour. ‘Fall out!’

  Could’ve been worse, the company thought, and Bertin thought so too, as he bounded back to his place between docile little Otto Reinhold and Pahl the typesetter like a terrier let off the lead. Reinhold nudged him with his elbow and gave him an imperceptible smirk.

  ‘Company – attention! Fall out!’

  Four hundred and thirty seven men about turned and stomped off to enjoy their free evening. No one wasted a word on what had just happened. They had underwear to wash, trousers to mend, dinner to eat, letters to write or cards to play. They could do what they wanted now. Be human, free. Werner Bertin strolled back to the barracks more slowly than the rest. Perhaps he felt a bit down-hearted. He decided to lie down for half an hour and then take his beard over to Naumann (Bruno), the barber. Off with it. Enough of standing out – basta.

  From among the group of NCOs still standing together, Herr Glinsky’s expressionless, bulging eyes fell on Bertin. To the right, above the hills at Kronprinzeneck and forward towards Romagne hung sausage-shaped captive balloons, shining gold in the evening light.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A glimmer

  THE JULY NIGHT lay heavy on the 3rd platoon’s barracks where some 130 men slept after a hard day’s graft. Stacked three high on wire netting and sacks of wood shavings, they rolled from side to side, groaning, sweating and scratching themselves without waking. The company was riddled with lice. The men had left the delousing station at Rosenheim clean and as if new-born, and before they moved into the grimy barracks here they’d cleaned up Prussian style, jettisoning cartloads of their predecessors’ rubbish. But the yellowish lice had waited patiently in the seams of the yellowish sleeping bags for their moment – and this was their moment. Lice are like bosses and fate: you can fight them but in the end you pretty much have to come to terms with them.

  From the outside, the long barracks seemed to be cloaked in darkness. Dr Bindel, a civilian doctor in uniform, had got the company carpenter to install ventilation flaps in the roof, using plans drawn up by Private Bertin and Schnee, a medical NCO. Non-soldiers would probably have thought it impossible to sleep there and wake refreshed. But they would’ve been wrong. It was possible to sleep there, as 130 men proved. The rats that zipped happily along the passageways could confirm it too, for they never woke anyone, except when they bit into their big toe. In any case, the rats preferred to be under the barracks rather than up in the land of the living. It was safer below.

  There were two glimmers of light in the barracks. Bertin was still reading, and by his head a stearin candle stuck on a tin holder burned, protected by his tunic, coat and rucksack. Some four men away and one level up, Pahl the typesetter was smoking a cigar. He smoked in order to think undisturbed, and his thoughts centred on Private Bertin.

  The comrade down below wasn’t reading because he wanted to. He had to play the writer again and was reading proofs. The first galleys of a new book that was being printed in Leipzig had arrived for him in the field post that evening. He’d shown the wide-margined columns of print, set in a clear font by reputable printers, to his comrade Pahl, who after all was in the business. Evenings and nights were the only times Bertin could check his text for printing errors and mark them up with the traditional squiggles in the margins. He’d thought he wouldn’t be able to concentrate after the stupid business with the inspection earlier, but he’d be getting a delivery like this every day now, so he’d reconsidered. Pahl knew only too well how important commas and colons were to writers, and how they chased down unnecessary repetitions. Bertin was quite right to keep his sentences in order, although he had other demands on his time now. The Germans were avid readers at the moment. They even read young authors – especially those. There hadn’t been so many new writers for more than a century. Bertin’s novel Love at Last Sight, which was typeset in the lovely Breitkopf font, had been unexpectedly reprinted that spring, and the royalties had greatly helped his wife. That much Pahl the typesetter knew from dinnertime chats. Pahl was very interested in the technical side of printing: the familiar names of the typefaces, whether it was better to set type manually or use a machine, the correction process. But he was much more interested in the author – admittedly for his own very particular reasons. As he lay there puffing on his company cigar, he mentally evaluated his comrade Bertin’s aptitude for the boxing match that surely lay ahead of him. Before bedtime, Pahl had received a hint from Sergeant Böhne, an affable type who’d been a postman before the war and was a Party sympathiser, as to what might happen the following morning. Pahl’s thoughts moved slowly one step at a time. It had awakened something within him to watch his comrade standing all alone at the centre of the company in the barracks yard with Graßnickian phrases raining down on him. Karl Lebehde was right. Bertin had shaved his beard off just a few hours too late – trust an innkeeper to understand the ways of the world. But it didn’t do to scoff at a typesetter’s musings either. For they drew on a thorough knowledge of the military order, which was based on a thorough knowledge of the social order…

  In Pahl’s view, the whole point of human society was to ensure that there were always enough workers available at the lowest possible wages, so that the workers didn’t share in the profits of their endeavours and couldn’t themselves sell what their skills produced, but were nonetheless loyal servants of the manufacturing process. To achieve this in peacetime, various conditions had to be put in place and maintained. In wartime, things simplified themselves nicely: anyone not working full out ended up in the trenches and had a hero’s death to look forward to. Pahl had grasped this early on and resisted all attempts by the newspaper house back home to claim him back. He’d stood down in favour of married colleagues, having carefully weighed up whether the comparative freedom of the labour company was more tolerable than the slavery of the newspaper house. Let someone else pump out the dirty stream of lies to the nation that helped prolong the war.

  Wilhelm Pahl saw himself as a product of the pressures and counter pressures of the class system. He’d come into the world with an ugly body and a squashed face. That’s fate, although mountain sunshine and exercise – that’s to say, wealthy parents or better social welfare – might have improved his physical condition. He was one of six children of Otto Pahl, a turner. He finished primary school – a royal Prussian primary school in Schöneberg – where his smart mind attracted attention early on. With his aptitude for thinking and learning, he could have gone far if he’d had wealthy parents or if social provision had been better. But being Pahl the turner’s son, he left school at the age of 14, and an apprenticeship at a printers was the best that a good reference from his teacher could secure for him. He couldn’t become an explorer or a natural historian, so he turned his attention to the circumstances of his own existence early on. It was too late to change his parents’ financial position; he therefore joined those who wanted to reconstruct society. He went to the Workers’ Party school and became a conscious component of the masses to which the future (due to the pressure being exerted by the masses) must inevitably belong. To keep the masses fenced in, society used them. Every year, in Germany and elsewhere, hundreds of thousands of society’s have-nots were shoved into uniform and drilled, building on the work done in schools, to make them useful and ready to shoot themselves in the shape of other workers – entirely against their own interests. In peacetime, this was just a possibility; in wartime, it was a ghastly and shockingly stupid reality. It goes without saying that Pahl the typesetter hated the army and everything it stood for. He despised war, which he saw as the spawn of the masses’ endless stupidity. At the same time, he understood war. It was essential to society’s struggle for world markets. It allowed tensions within states to be redirected to the outside and meant that armies of proletarians, who might rise up against the ruling classes tomorrow, were busy slaughtering each other on the field of honour today.

  Pahl the typesetter closed his eyes. He would’ve liked to go to sleep but couldn’t just
yet. The truth of his theory excited him. The slightest sign that the proletariat saw through the clever differentiation created by uniforms and manners of speech made the military machine nervous. The devil alone knew what they’d made of that harmless sheep Bertin. In any case, the performance earlier clearly demonstrated that they intended to use his example to proscribe fraternisation with French prisoners. But Bertin had acted purely out of good heartedness, out of a decent, perhaps slightly sentimental sense of comradeship. He hadn’t been trying to condemn war itself. He was far too much the product of a higher education for that. Karl Lebehde had guessed that too. You had to hand it to Comrade Lebehde.

  Now there would be nothing left for ‘comrade’ Bertin but to become a real Comrade. Wilhelm Pahl saw that, which was why he couldn’t sleep. He wanted to promote this outcome. Sergeant Böhne had confided to him that a new commando was to be sent forward early the following day. Two long-range guns were stuck in a valley between Fosses wood and Pepper ridge. They had to be removed the next day so that a new (Bavarian) howitzer battery could be installed there. Front-line commandos were normally drawn from the strong men in the first and second platoons, but tomorrow’s commando, unusually, was to be made up of the small, weak men in the 9th, 10th and 11th platoons, who had worked in the ammunitions tent until now. The recent offender, Bertin, belonged to the 10th platoon, Pahl to the 9th, and the sergeants and corporals who would have to go forward with them were the three platoon leaders.

  ‘See anything unusual in that, Pahl?’ Böhne had laughed. ‘If you were a veteran soldier, you’d spot it.’

  Wilhelm Pahl wasn’t a veteran, but he’d spotted it anyway: this was an example of group punishment. The Prussian military sometimes liked to inflict disadvantages and unpleasantness on a whole group when one of its number was guilty of misconduct, so that the group would turn against the guilty party and make his life a misery. That was why Herr Glinksy had assembled the NCOs after the inspection.