He took a small mouthful, and Bertin, who was listening intently, finally drained his glass. For a moment, Süßmann seemed sunk in the distant past. Then he resurfaced, lit a cigarette and continued: ‘I came to in the rain. I was lying under the open sky on the rubble-strew paving stones of the inner courtyard. I gazed up at the grey clouds, at first uncomprehendingly. Everything inside me felt raw and burning, but I was alive. It was probably a while before I gave any sign of life. I watched men in smoke masks dragging soldiers’ bodies out of the opening to the blackened tunnel, where a plume of black smoke curled. I wanted to check the time, but my watch was gone. I always used to wear a small ring I inherited from my grandmother on my left hand – a lucky turquoise. It was gone too. I searched for my cigarette case. Also gone for good. My tunic had been unbuttoned and my shirt ripped open. My chest was bare, which was probably what woke me up and rescued me. But there had been quite a bit of wages in my neck pouch, and it had also vanished. I sat up then – the damp paving stones felt good on my hands – and saw that all around me were stone-dead men: blue, suffocated, blackened faces. A column of 400 men takes up a fair bit of room, but there were many more than that lying in the courtyard and the orderlies kept bringing out more. They’d cleaned me out, but I didn’t begrudge them it because I was breathing air again. I don’t ever want to be hanged or choked. I never turn on the gas tap and when I hear about our gas attacks I feel sick. I’d prefer a shell splinter in the head or a bullet in the heart.
‘I buttoned up my tunic, even turning the collar up, and staggered to my feet. I felt dizzy, it hurt when I coughed and I had a dreadful headache, but that was all. The medical NCO who saw me first was amazed. “Well, you’re a lucky devil,” were his first words to me. I was already a sergeant by then but I’d forgotten that. I was still a bit dazed and so I saluted and said, ‘Private Süßmann, sir,’ and I’m told I grinned stupidly, though I consider that slanderous. I was given something to drink, Aspirin for my headache, a couple of whiffs of oxygen, and then I told them what had happened. I didn’t know much at that point, but it was enough to make them decide not to clear out the extinguished crater. Our captain had the dead all carried back in again, but I was already asleep in the new hospital section on a nice, comfy bed by then – still wood wool, of course – and when I woke up the second time I was really fine. I wasn’t coughing any more. My head was throbbing and there was a ring of raw flesh on the inside of my throat, but that was about it. Later on, I saw our construction squad walling up the passages. They’re still there now, the dead residents of Douaumont, a whole battalion of them, can’t be much fewer than 1,000 men, all the occupants of the far end of that wing: Bavarians, sappers, ASC men, the entire dressing station.
‘That was the explosion in Douaumont. It wasn’t reported, and if you like I’ll take you to the spot later and you can pray for the souls of the fallen. Since then, I’ve thought about things more carefully and I no longer find them all that agreeable. And now you should be heading back.’
Bertin said he should and thanked Süßmann for telling him his story. But something still troubled him. ‘Did you go straight back on duty after that as if nothing had happened?’ he asked, stretching himself.
‘What do you think? Sergeant Süßmann retorted. ‘I got some sick leave, naturally. Fourteen glorious days in May at home, where I didn’t breathe a word about any of it. Civilians don’t like their picture of the war to be spoiled by the real war. And, anyway, we’d been told to keep our traps shut.’
‘It’s always like that,’ said Lieutenant Kroysing. ‘He who knows too much dies young. And how did Captain Niggl respond to my kind enquiry after his health? Will he be able to turn out tonight?’
Sergeant Süßmann pulled a grave face and said the captain still felt ill. The doctor had prescribed – or at least authorised – bed rest, particularly as there were now three acting lieutenants present who could take his place.
Kroysing’s tone was also grave: ‘Shame. I do regret causing an old officer nothing but trouble. And I’m not very congenial company. When you come back, my friend,’ he said, standing up and offering Bertin his hand, ‘Niggl’s health will have got a lot worse.’
Sergeant Süßmann arranged his cap in such a way that both cockades hung over the bridge of his nose. He planned to accompany Bertin some of the way. Then he asked whether the lieutenant wasn’t perhaps being too optimistic about the captain’s health. The telephone exchange had received instructions from the captain’s orderly room to find a Catholic field chaplain. He’d be arriving in the next few days if the Frogs continued to behave themselves.
A thin smile played on Kroysing’s lips. ‘He wants to confess,’ he said. ‘Does no harm if a man’s going soft on the inside. Mulch is the name given to that condition in apples and pears. Thanks, Süßmann. After that news, I think I may turn out tonight myself.’
CHAPTER THREE
Father Lochner
‘IT’S GOING TO be a hard winter,’ observed Strumpf the park-keeper a morning or two later as he stepped out of his hut, which had once been a French blockhouse.
Blue sky and sunlight flashed through the clouds of mist. Beechnuts hung heavily from gilded beech branches, and red berries shone among the rowan leaves, barberry sprigs and bramble bushes. Unperturbed by the approaching thunder, a pair of squirrels worked in the treetops, driving out a squawking magpie.
‘A hard winter’s all we need,’ countered his comrade Kilian in Baden dialect.
Bertin was at the switchboard communicating with the Cape camp. Through the open window, he heard Friedrich Strumpf expanding on how nature alleviated bad cold snaps for birds and wild animals by providing a surfeit of fruit, almost as if someone were looking out for the innocent creatures. Kilian the tobacco worker laughed at that: he was a free thinker, a Darwinist, as he proudly explained, saw the struggle for existence everywhere confirmed and would have preferred harsh winters to be alleviated for the women and children at home first of all. As he spoke, he sat happily in the early autumn sunshine darning a grey woollen sock. He had time for that kind of thing now, while his wife, who had taken his place in the factory and was bringing up two children, couldn’t possibly be expected to mend his winter things as well. Bertin, earphones on his head, nodded. Every individual man in the army, himself included, was attached to threads that travelled far back behind the lines. Then the switchboard buzzed again, and he received instructions from the sapper depot in Fosses wood about changing the points, with enquiries about construction troops and the number of wagons on the siding. He liked the little railway operation. This tiny cog in a giant wheel helped him to grasp the human ingenuity required to power the front line, how everything had to be done exactly right, so that when the crucial moment came a smooth and decisive blow could be struck. The two Badeners were happy with him. They just shook their heads at his enterprising spirit when he headed off past the field howitzers to Douaumont. Karl Kilian understood him better than his older colleague; it was right and proper for a newspaper reporter to do that, he said, so that he could relate the truth later.
Bertin knew full well that the good times were coming to an end. In a couple of days the man on leave would return. Bertin would then have to pack his things and go back to the stuffy, noisy barracks, his company and the poisonous fug around Graßnick and Glinsky, where all finer feelings were steamrollered like grass beneath a rolling donkey. Group living seemed to drain people of energy. He’d recovered here in the sunshine. He slept better in the clear air, he had time off and he enjoyed his food more because Friedrich Strumpf knew how to liven up the rations with all kinds of flavourings. Night hours spent awake at the silent switchboard reading under the electric light gave him the peace and solitude to be himself. He often saw beyond the printed pages to young Kroysing, who’d already been swept so far along by the river of life, and his wild brother who was wading through its centre, knee-deep today, waist-high tomorrow… If ever a man had needed this war it was Eberhard Kr
oysing – to find himself, express his nature, test his range, as he put it. It was the urge for such experience that had made an entire generation of German youth flee the strictures of the pre-war period for unbridled war – Kroysing, Süßmann, Bertin, all of them. In 1914, they’d all felt that real life – a life of danger and hardship – was just about to begin. Now here they sat sunk in the disgusting realities of it and expected to come to terms with them. If anyone could have predicted to the schoolboy Süßmann how he would feel two years after the start of the war or what he would have gone through… boy, oh boy!
Then Süßmann’s cheerful voice crackled in Bertin’s ear. He said he was to say hello to Bertin from his company, or at least from the Fosses wood unit. He’d worked long and hard with them the day before. In particular, two Berliners had been asking for him: a funny chap with fat cheeks, freckles and very clever eyes (Bertin nodded to himself: Lebehde) and a bad-tempered hunchback (aha, Pahl). They’d said to tell him there was plenty of company news and that he should come back soon if only to see the arrival of a new sergeant major – something he would no doubt welcome.
What rubbish, thought Bertin listlessly. And from next week that will be my world again, day in, day out. Yes, he quoted the poet Schiller, the great days of Aranjuez would soon be over.
‘You’re leaving us,’ said the lad. ‘Kroysing still has a lot to discuss with you. He said to ask you to stay the night with us tomorrow.’
‘That’s easily arranged,’ said Bertin, somewhat taken aback. He’d make sure to arrive before the evening bombardment so the gunfire didn’t spoil his journey.
In the entrance tunnel to the fort, Bertin got caught up in an eddy of departing infantry – a battalion waiting for nightfall to move up to the front and send the current trench crew for a so-called rest. A great deal of food had been handed out, and the men’s cooking pots were steaming, possibly for the last time in weeks. In one corner of the yard, sergeants were bent over postal bags calling out the names of their squads: ‘Wädchen!’ – ‘Here.’ ‘Sauerbier! – ‘Here.’ ‘Klotsche!’ – ‘Here.’ ‘Frauenfeind!’ – ‘Here.’ As Bertin pushed through them, he got a whiff of them and saw their thin faces, skin stretched over bones, and exhausted expressions. Few of them were more than medium height; none of them was fresh. He almost felt guilty in their presence, because he looked upright, reasonably well fed and refreshed. Their sing-song Saxon speech helped to neutralise the bitterness that saturated their exchanges. In their caps (they wouldn’t change into steel helmets until they were at the front) and shabby uniforms they looked half-grown, more like 17-year-old schoolboys on a class outing than the living wall, which, according to the cant in the newspapers, was protecting the homeland on French soil.
It was nearly 4.30pm. The September sun bathed the pentagon’s massive inner chamber and the deep cut leading to the casemate in rich, golden light. Bertin wove his way patiently through the throngs of men, who had laid down their bundles of hand grenades, assault equipment and gas masks. Muzzle covers gleamed on their rifles, and the locks were wrapped in rags to protect them from the dust in the narrow approach trenches and shelled zones. A group who’d already eaten stopped him and asked him for a light for their cigarettes and pipes. Bertin spent a few minutes with them. They were curious because of his grey oil-cloth cap and yellow brass cross, and his glasses gave them the idea he might know when peace would come. Weariness was etched on their brows, and they made no secret of it, but Bertin knew that wouldn’t stop them giving their last. As usual, their rest days had not been restorative. They’d improved rear positions, brought up materials and been subjected to all kinds of roll calls designed to maintain discipline. The only difference compared with the front line was hot food, undisturbed sleep and plenty of water to wash in. It was something but it wasn’t much. As they swarmed around in the fort, they seemed to Bertin to be like animated fragments of the wrecked upper works, which looked as though they had long ago lost all powers of resistance. Shell holes bordered shell holes. Scraps of yellowed turf still clung on in the shadow of the ramparts, but the brickwork had collapsed, falling into the trenches outside and blocking tunnel entrances inside. The ramparts were like mounds of earth dotted with steel splinters, which was particularly astonishing when you considered the unshakable fastness of the underground fortress. The infantrymen were like that too. They looked like drifting herds of death, workers in the factory of destruction, and displayed all the indifference that industry and machines force on men. But inside they were unbroken. They went to the front without enthusiasm or illusions, buoyed only by the hope of returning in one piece in 10 days. Forward again and back again until released by a wound that hospitalised them – or death. But they didn’t like to think about that. They wanted to live. They hoped to go home. And now they wanted to sleep a couple of hours longer.
Still brooding on their fate, Bertin climbed down over some sandbags and disappeared into the bowels of the fort. With no guide, he initially got completely lost in the passages. Eventually, he ended up in the telephone exchange where a man who like himself wore glasses told him the way. With the Saxons’ lilt still in his ear, he found the telephonist’s clean Hanoverian tones almost disconcerting. He himself was a Silesian. He was visiting a Franconian and a Berliner by birth. The Germans had become thoroughly integrated and had learnt to respect one another.
‘Come in!’ Kroysing called out curtly. A visitor sat in his room, a gentleman. On the bed lay a kind of riding hat with one upturned brim. The visitor had violet lapels, a plump, brown, clean-shaven oval of a face with an exceptionally small mouth and very clear, bright eyes: a priest! A field chaplain in Douaumont with a silver cross round his neck! Bertin knew you were supposed to salute these men like officers and that they set a lot of store by that. He’d have preferred to make an immediate getaway, but Lieutenant Kroysing, behind his desk as usual, was emphatically warm: ‘At last, my friend. May I introduce you gentlemen? My friend Bertin, a trainee lawyer currently in the garb of an ASC private. Father Benedikt Lochner, currently in cavalry trooper’s garb.’
The priest laughed heartily. His hand in Bertin’s felt fat but strong. ‘You shouldn’t speak about cavalry troopers, Lieutenant. I came here riding pillion on a motorbike – what Berliners call the bridemobile and Viennese the dolly stool. So take your pick: I’m either a bride or a dolly bird.’ He ran a smoothing hand through his thin blonde hair, dabbed his head with a handkerchief, said he found it rather hot down below and took a sip of cognac. His jovial, urban Rhineland dialect sounded odd on his delicate lips.
‘It’s absolutely fine for my friend Bertin to hear what we have to discuss,’ said Kroysing, resuming their conversation. ‘In fact, no one is more qualified to listen in and comment than him. He spoke to my poor brother the day before he died, heard about his troubles and offered him help – the only man to do so in a desert, or should I say a vale of tears – and I’ll remember that until the day I die. You won’t mind that he’s a Jew. Compared to Protestant heretics, they’re chips off the old block.’
Bertin sat glumly on Kroysing’s bed. He’d have preferred to be alone with him. The priest assessed Bertin, the shape of his skull, the beginnings of a bald patch on his crown. True enough, he thought. This young man looks like a monk in some famous painting. I can’t remember which one, but it’s bound to be Italian. He may make my job easier or harder. In any case, he clearly labours and is heavy laden. Aloud, he said that he didn’t know how Captain Niggl would feel about this three-way discussion.
Bertin made to stand up, but Kroysing stretched out a hand to stop him. ‘Nothing doing,’ he said. ‘You’re staying. Shall we postpone our discussion, Father Lochner? That would be fine by me. Bertin’s here today for the last time. He has to go back to his lousy company, and I’m planning to give him a goodbye present, a special memento. I’m going to the front tonight. Our mine throwers are in position, and the section officers want to talk to me. I assume you’re prepared to risk it, Bertin?
Everyone ought to see the show.’
Bertin blushed and confirmed that he would of course come. ‘I was expecting a booze-up from what Süßmann said but I prefer it this way.’
‘Huh,’ said the priest, adding that such chances didn’t come along very often and that he’d like to join them if they didn’t mind.
Kroysing raised his eyebrows and contemplated the priest’s long, fine tunic, wide-cut riding trousers and almost elegant lace-up shoes: ‘Won’t it damage your robes?’ The priest emphatically denied that it would, and Kroysing said: ‘You’ll meet a lot of Christian men, Lutherans in fact, but such distinctions evaporate out there. Machine guns welcome Jews and atheists just as warmly as Catholics and Protestants. The position we’ll be visiting was relieved yesterday. The lads here in the fort are being sent somewhere worse, I believe, further to the west. Do you want to postpone our business, Father? I don’t mind, though I’d prefer it if you said your piece now.’
Outside Verdun Page 18
