Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  Everyone in the services knew that the sappers, artillery men and technical troops in the German army all suffered from neglect. Compared to the cavalry and the infantry they were largely left to their own devices. No princes or noblemen served with them. They always got a raw deal during manoeuvres, and in peacetime their training and upkeep were underfunded. It was only in the first two years of the war that people had started to talk about how valuable sappers were. Who threw bridges over the Meuse under enemy fire? The sappers. Who cut pathways through wire entanglements before an attack armed with nothing but pliers while enemy guns lay in wait? Who pushed the fire trenches forwards and dug out positions in impossible locations, in limestone or in swamps? Who threw hand grenades as big and round as babies’ heads? Who humped the bloody gas canisters around? Who carried still-smoking flame throwers on their backs through enemy fire, risking being burnt alive if a bullet hit them? Always the sappers. Sapper lieutenants such as Kroysing had been involved in innumerable attacks and had survived uninjured only by the grace of God. And what about the telephonists, who mended essential cables again and again under heavy French fire or serviced the listening apparatus in the forward fire trenches where the gunners slaved – until very recently they’d all been the army’s stepchildren. More recently than that in the feudal regiments, where they were still too refined to have backsides.

  Lunch passed pleasantly. Many of the men retired for a nap. Others drank their coffee. Captain Lauber invited his guest to a game of chess, as work didn’t begin again until half past two. Eberhard Kroysing was an excellent chess player. The coffee tasted good and so did his cigar. He’d soon begin a game of chess with an unknown adversary and he’d be back in his lair before the Frogs fired over their evening blessing. Life was worth living.

  The hot and cloudy August day hung oppressively over the rolling hilltops. Jackets unbuttoned, Captain Lauber and his guest strolled through the long, narrow fruit garden where farmers who’d now been displaced had once grown cider apples. Squat, leafy trees stood in the middle of a grassy patch, groaning under the weight of their green fruits. The captain said the trees fruited like that back home in Göppingen too, except the Swabian apples ripened red, those here yellow. That was the only difference. And for that they were at war with each other.

  Eberhard Kroysing was enjoying the company of this intelligent superior officer. He had to curb his stride beside the shorter man but was happy to do so. The captain said it was much better to discuss things in the open under the flitting shadow of the leaves than in the low-ceilinged farm house. No one could deny that, said Kroysing. The captain replied that he must have the initials O.C. for Sapper Officer Commanding after his name to talk like that. An ordinary lieutenant wouldn’t dare. Even a lieutenant can think, said Kroysing. Even as a soldier he’d learnt that – especially as a soldier.

  ‘Not many did,’ snarled Captain Lauber. His short-cropped hair was greying at the temples and he was going on top. He waved away the persistent flies attacking his bald patch and asked how things were at the front. No beating about the bush. The short, sharp truth between men. He wanted to know that first before Lieutenant Kroysing unpacked his own troubles.

  Eberhard Kroysing shrugged his shoulders. His own troubles? He didn’t have any. It was precisely in order to tell the short, sharp truth that he’d come. The infantry needed help. Those poor dogs didn’t have much to laugh about. Their so-called positions in shell holes and rifle pits extended across the valley, usually overlooked from right or left, and were the object of frantic fighting. The French had attacked 30 times, and the Germans had repulsed them 30 times or more, with the sappers always alongside. But they wouldn’t get any further now. August was drawing to a close. They had six to eight weeks left at best. Then a new enemy would attack the men: rain.

  They paced up and down, with Kroysing always on the captain’s left, switching round at each turn. His relatively long hair was damp with sweat, and he dried it with his hand, wiping his hand on his jodhpurs before speaking again. Anyone who, like him, had been deployed here since the beginning of January and had seen the clayey ground transformed into a boundless morass knew the score. The fighting troops’ morale was now being corroded by the savage bombardments, appalling losses and the ongoing stalemate in battle. They couldn’t fetch food or move ammunition without men being killed or wounded. Attempts to relieve the troops or advance in larger groups left the men scattered, decimated or with shattered nerves. They didn’t even have a decent shelter to sleep in. The only safe place in the whole area remained Old Uncle Douaumont. Even if the Frogs had a go at it, it was now 3km behind the actual front, and those 3km made all the difference. But what would happen when the rain came? How would they hold out?

  Captain Lauber snorted. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘I see.’

  Kroysing’s didactic tone and forceful manner sparked resistance in him. But he was a fair-minded man. Without detailed knowledge of every fold of the terrain and advice from the officers in the trenches, the high-ups had nothing on which to base their decisions. For they stayed at the rear: the higher up they were, the further back they stayed. In this respect, the approach of Hannibal and Caesar had been far superior to that taken in these glorious times.

  ‘What do you suggest, young man? Tell me straight and don’t sugar the pill.’

  ‘Strengthening the garrison at Douaumont by an entire ASC battalion,’ replied Kroysing indifferently. He was deep in thought, his eyes on the tip of his shoe, which played with a fallen apple full of worms. Douaumont was big and safe, and had plenty of room. Not a single crack in the casemate or the vaulting over the long passageways. Only the top parts had been demolished: the brickwork, supports, surrounds and earthworks. The concrete had held. It had taken at least 2,000 heavy shells, maybe even 3,000, since 21 February. Hats off to French civil engineering.

  Captain Lauber puffed fiercely on his pipe. He’d have to look into it. It was his area. He himself was a civil engineer in uniform. He’d been in Douaumont three times but only ever in the yards and in the eastern armoured tower, never below. Had Lieutenant Kroysing ever measured the thickness of the vaulting? Kroysing shook his head. The weather had never been settled enough for that – too much metal in the air. But he reckoned the concrete ceiling was easily 3m thick. It would make a good impression if the captain came to inspect the depot administered by his sappers and took a few measurements while he was at it.

  Captain Lauber’s eyes flashed. It was a very good idea to stick another hundred sappers in Douaumont to relieve the fighting troops. With their own staff, company and battalion commanders, naturally. There were lots of gentlemen sitting about behind the lines, leading a nice life, who had no idea what a cushy number God had given them. At the same time, their men had long since turned into fully functioning front-line soldiers. They hauled barbed wire, trench props and ammunition like sappers, and dug trenches and came under fire almost like infantrymen.

  Eberhard Kroysing listened with malicious enjoyment. He couldn’t have put it better himself. Did Captain Lauber have a particular person in his sights? Whom did he want rid of? He surely wouldn’t let on. The higher-up gentlemen liked to play their cards close to their chests.

  (As it happened, Captain Lauber’s discerning eye had lit on Herr Jansch, politician and braggart, whom he’d already removed from Lille – lit on him and moved on. Wouldn’t work this time, more was the pity. The artillery – his friend Reinhard – needed the men. Shame.)

  Kroysing was almost there. ‘I’m thinking of a Bavarian battalion that my men are working with,’ he said. ‘Their headquarters is in Mangiennes, and the company is a little further forward – or perhaps I should say less far back.’ He effortlessly plucked an apple from a fairly high branch, tossed it in the air and caught it again, before adding that some of them were in any case posted as reserve troops within range of the fort in the direction of Pepper ridge and could stay there. Most of them, however, would need to spend all of the coming weeks buil
ding dry dugouts with pumps and drains on the higher slopes. ‘We’ll get in touch with the infantry to tell them where the best spots are within eight days. In the meantime, you could put through a request for the Niggl battalion, Captain, and perhaps tempt the staff with the notion of medals and decorations.’

  ‘That’ll shut them up and make them obey,’ said Captain Lauber. There was already bad blood between the battle-hardened soldiers at the front and the HQ behind the lines, which had expanded as if it were peacetime. What were men to think who’d spent four or five months being hustled back and forwards at the front, been withdrawn battle-weary and redeployed when refreshed, if they had a look round the communications zone and saw how they lived there? ‘The likes of us would know how to lift the troops’ morale. But it’s better not to think about it too much.’

  The two officers looked at each other. Of course it was better to keep quiet about such things. They thought about the Commander-in-Chief, the Kaiser’s son and heir to the throne, who had on occasion turned up in tennis whites when fighting units where marching to the front and waved at them with his racket. Such scenes had been photographed and hawked to the newspapers, and a lot of officers found them perplexing.

  Captain Lauber sighed. He was a good soldier, prepared to put everything he had on a German victory. Lieutenant Kroysing was taking his leave now, and that was right and proper. He should of course have the car, which would take him as close as it could to his foxhole. Large parts of the area were under long-range fire.

  When Captain Niggl received his death sentence, written on an ordinary piece of paper, to the effect that he would be swapping his comfortable billet in Mangiennes for Douaumont, he thought at first he must have read it wrong. An ASC battalion has no adjutants or staff – just a sergeant major and a couple of clerks to handle its business. Furthermore, Herr Niggl was a Royal Bavarian official and so he liked to be the first to see the battalion’s incoming mail. He sat there in his comfortable house jacket, which could hardly be called a uniform, at one with God, his namesake Saint Aloysius and himself, and stared at the half sheet of draft paper, which was signed by Captain Lauber in Damvillers on behalf of the Sappers GOC and sent him, Niggl, to his death. What in buggery is this supposed to mean? he thought, clasping his heart – his beer-fattened, Bavarian heart from Weilheim. It was bloody ridiculous. He was a captain in the Imperial Reserve and a father with two minor children to look after and a vivacious wife, Kreszenzia, née Hornschuh. There must be some mistake. That often happened in war. People were people and they could easily make mistakes. Nonetheless, he thought he’d better go to see Captain Lauber. He knew the Württemberg man. He’d sort it out with him. He folded the order up, put it in his worn, deerskin wallet and put the wallet in his trouser pocket. No need for anyone to see it just yet. It was easier to deflect danger if you hadn’t talked about it.

  He drove there in a state of forced calm. Above his fat cheeks, his shrewd eyes wore a rather assured look. He returned as a man who had seen the serious side of life. That Swabian bastard Lauber had gone puce with anger, the miserable noodle muncher. He’d asked him who he thought he was, if he was there to serve the state or to brighten the place up. Captain Niggl wasn’t really handsome enough for that. And did he think he was the only father in the German army? He told him not bring shame on his men, to keep a stiff upper lip and set a good example to his honest ASC men. Soldiers fought quite differently when they saw that their superior officers, who were raking it in each month, at least put themselves in danger too. He would set out the day after next at 3am with his Third Company. The sapper depot at Douaumont would send him guides. From now on he was answerable to the depot. He’d be signed over to the 10th Army Corps and be part of the garrison at Douaumont. He would now have the opportunity to excel and experience life. Besides, the war wasn’t about to end, and there was no life insurance policy for any German officer regardless of whether he was in Mangiennes, Damvillers or Douaumont. The Fourth Company would stay behind and take charge of the railway troops, but the First and Second Companies would follow when the works required. The works: dry dugouts for the infantry, which constituted the backbone of any defence and might earn him a medal.

  Yes, there was nothing for it. He, Alois Niggl, from Weilheim in Upper Bavaria, was going to have to cave in and play the hero.

  Pale moonlight. The crescent moon was in its second quarter and didn’t rise until close to midnight. In deep silence, three columns of ASC men moved through Spincourt wood, heavily laden with haversacks, entrenching tools, packages and boxes. They knew the roads, having kept them in good repair. The wood, made up of beeches growing on damp soil, was amazingly dense, torn up in some places by shellfire and undamaged in others, depending on the twists and turns of the front and the artillery positions. The men looked pale. Some of their mouths were quivering so much they couldn’t smoke. Many of the country boys said a rosary. Only a couple of urban big mouths talked like they didn’t care. Hill 310 hadn’t yet appeared on the horizon. They were to meet the guides beneath it at the junction with the road to Bezonvaux at 3am. Every man in that marching column wanted to drag out the time until then – to lengthen every minute and insert new units of time. No one was enjoying the change of scene or the damp, fresh air after the heat. They imagined Douaumont to be a kind of fire-spitting mountain and believed they would now disappear inside its bowels. There were also rumours about a gigantic explosion that had finished off over a thousand men, no one knew how. The sappers who’d been there before, with whom they’d now be dossing down, had told them about that. Many of them had pretended to know further details, including the fact that it could happen again any day. A whole battalion wiped out, the sappers said. It didn’t encourage the men to put one foot in front of another.

  By 3am their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloaming. They’d been sitting at the roadside for half an hour on boxes and bulging rucksacks each filled with two rolled-up mats, a coat and lace-up boots. They listened dully to the racket wafting over from the other side of Hill 310. On the top, dim white and red lights danced and flickered. Then three slim figures appeared, armed only with steel helmets and gas mask cylinders, carrying walking sticks made from branches. They eyed the ASC men’s enormous packs with sympathy. An NCO reported to Captain Niggl, who’d already sent his horse back. The sappers took position at the heads of the three columns, and the men marched off in single file along well-trodden footpaths. The dark sky was reflected in the shell holes. The ASC men trudged on one step at a time, leaning on their spades. The sappers exuded calm. No need to worry, they said. There’d be nothing doing at this hour. The German infantry had had enough. The Frogs had got sick of it long ago. And the dead who lay decaying outside Souville, by the battlements at Thiaumont and around the ruins at Fleury weren’t about to bite anyone. The path led downhill into a broad depression, where they briefly had a view of the horizon dimly lit by flares. Machine gun fire rattled away like the hammering of sewing machines. The men at the back were having to puff and stumble to keep up and avoid being overtaken by daylight. The night wind carried sweet and terrible smells. Formless patches of blackness intensified the darkness around them. Slanting moonlight filled the shell holes with light and shadow. Then a soaring peak loomed up, obscuring the view. The men climbed its flank, shivering in the first breath of morning air. That’s Hill 388, the sappers said. The long, shell-pitted rampart, which was no longer a rampart, was still called Fort Douaumont. A tall figure with his cap pushed back on his head stood in the shadow of the great arched doorway, whose shattered masonry was patched up with sandbags. His avid eyes scrutinised the approaching column.

  What smells did the men’s reluctant noses pick up? Disintegrating masonry. Human excrement. Spent ammunition. Dried blood.

  BOOK THREE

  Inside the hollow mountain

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wild Boar gorge

  THE MEUSE HILLS descended from left and right to the winding river like a herd of hor
ses stretching their necks to drink in water. They began as outliers of the Argonne, rolling or tabletop hills running from west to east. The land was green. Green and crossed by streams, so that the valleys were full of marshy woodland. Between tall beeches, alder and ash, ducks nested and wild boar rooted about in the blossoming shrubs and briers of the undergrowth. Villages had grown up around the few tracks on the cleared uplands. There were mills by the streams, and the skilled and industrious Lorraine peasants grew fruit and corn, and raised cattle and horses. The land between the Moselle and the Meuse had been fecund and productive for a thousand years. Celts, Romans and Franks had cultivated it, and it was favourably situated beside the green and white lands of Champagne.