Bertin looked uncomprehendingly from one of the two hardened agitators to the other and listened while Lebehde explained all the preliminaries that had to be gone through before a man could be transferred from the front back to Germany. A detour via the court martial would reinvigorate the plan and make it realistic.
‘No,’ said Pahl, shaking his head, ‘unfortunately, the major’s got it wrong. I’ll be buzzing off back to Germany with my toe, and you, dear chap, had better get some help with this even if you have to go to the moon for it. We’ll soon prise you out of a court martial.’
Bertin felt suddenly ashamed of the initial caution that had made him want to keep quiet. He needed to be open with those who trusted him and discuss with them how best to proceed. He was ready for the fight now and armed against the potential vicissitudes to come. That was why he just laughed when a nurse came up to Pahl’s bed, asked rather curtly which of the two of them was Bertin and said he’d been expected him for some time in room 19.
The two men left behind watched his retreating back and thinning hair. ‘We did him an injustice that time back in Romagne, Karl,’ said Pahl. But Karl Lebehde observed impassively that it was better to do someone an injustice than to suffer one and that he hadn’t noticed anything.
Judge Advocate Posnanski took a while to say goodbye to Kroysing and was almost paternal in his warmth. The room mates listened with amusement to the fat man talking but thought that what he said made sense. For Lieutenant Kroysing didn’t want to accept that his plan to send the sappers a replacement in the form of Bertin simply wasn’t going to work. Posnanski spoke only of how important Bertin was as the only witness in the future trail of retired civil servant Niggl from Weilheim in Upper Bavaria. Kroysing could not deny the logic of his analysis, though he growled in reluctance: ‘You want me to start fighting private battles like everyone else in this war.’ This ‘you’ encompassed Lieutenants Flachsbauer and Mettner, who supported the judge advocate’s plans. ‘The man is capable of commanding a company, and you want me to put him in a display cabinet.’
The man was born for the court martial, Lieutenant Flachsbauer cried in reply. And Lieutenant Mettner asked sarcastically if he’d ever thought of letting him choose for himself.
‘Choose?’ said Kroysing haughtily, though he was laughing. ‘Oh, that’d be great.’
‘You tyrant,’ teased Lieutenant Flachsbauer.
‘Slave driver,’ added Lieutenant Mettner, who was often genuinely annoyed by Kroysing’s tyrannical and commanding manner. And in order to irritate him he told the story of a minor and not particularly relevant incident he’d seen a few weeks before he was wounded. It demonstrated a lack of backbone which showed the average officer clearly represented the average German, as Mettner had come to know him. As a liaison officer with Group West he had passed on a complaint made to him by an officer who had poured his heart out to him during a inspection in a neighbouring sector. The officer had said that because of the relay stations it was impossible to get the high ups to understand that each of his companies in the front line (‘in the shit,’ as he put it) had a combat strength of barely 40 rifles at its disposal and not over 110 as was continually reported. ‘And then the high ups wonder when we take a pasting. Sick and transferred men are always counted in too.’
Mettner promised to deal with it. But when one of the inspectors from the Lychow Group appeared to check it out, the officer denied it all for fear of making himself unpopular with the regiment, and Lieutenant Mettner was left in the lurch. ‘And he did only have 40 rifles when the French suddenly attacked. And you want to throw your unsuspecting friend in among that lot where he’ll always be putting their backs up? Well, I’d sooner not have you for a brother.’
Kroysing started up, upset by the word ‘brother’, but controlled himself: he had always put the common good above his own interests, he grumbled. Was that a problem?
‘But you can see that in this case circumstances require a different response,’ said Posnanksi soothingly. ‘So let me have Bertin or rather help me to get him, for—’ But the three men in the room explained they’d already heard the whole story from the jinxed man himself. ‘So much the better,’ twinkled Posnanski, ‘then you can be my representatives.’ And he said that he had found a champion for Bertin in Sister Kläre, who was going to telephone a high-ranking personage and ask him to intervene. ‘Keep at her. Don’t harangue her but don’t let it go either. If she gets annoyed, don’t push it. Maybe you can bring it up in 12 hours or so, eh? All she promised me was to think about it. You look as though you won’t leave her in peace until she gets on that phone, dear chap.’
Kroysing flushed and said he would do what he could, just as Bertin walked in eager to hear from Posnanksi if his cause was lost. They laughed at him, mocking his downbeat attitude. Speaking in the tone of a regimental commander, Kroysing announced that Bertin was to be transferred to the court martial because of lack of bottle. Posnanski assured him that effective steps in that direction had already been taken. When Posnanski finally set off, he left behind a happy party and Bertin was much reassured. Posnanski shook Bertin’s hand warmly and said he was counting on him and was only going on ahead in order to spend his leave in Berlin.
‘Have a good time, then,’ said Kroysing, ‘and say hello to the old place for me.’
‘I will,’ said Posnanski. ‘Any particular part?’
‘The part between the Technical University and Wittenbergplatz,’ said Kroysing. ‘Where there are always so many girls’ legs on view.’
‘Right, so Tauentzienstraße and the Kurfürstendamm,’ said Posnanksi, pretending to make a note on the palm of his hand.
‘Stop,’ cried Bertin. ‘Where are the files?’
‘You’ll make an excellent clerk, my legal friend,’ said Posnanski gravely. ‘I’ll leave them with my representative.’ And then he finally pushed off, accompanied to his car by Bertin.
When he returned, Kroysing asked him in passing if frog face had told him anything important. No, replied Bertin innocently, he’d just told him a bit about the people in the staff with whom he might come into contact. Kroysing seemed happy with this reply. None of the four initiates had let on to Bertin whom the judge advocate meant by his representative. Posnanki had worked on the assumption that people usually come over best when they act naturally. However, the three officers, who had all been rather taken aback by Posnanski’s disclosure, kept the information from Bertin out of a curious kind of esprit de corps. They were from the hospital, and so was Sister Kläre. Bertin wasn’t. The person to be telephoned was a hospital secret. Outsiders didn’t need to know about it. But above all, they liked the idea of at least sharing a secret with this woman, if nothing else. Until that day, the idea that she’d had something with the crown prince had just been talk. Now it seemed it was real, and each of the three young men envied the general. For some time now, none of them had seen Sister Kläre as a nurse. They all felt themselves to be enveloped by her sparkling charm. For in a long war, however manly a soldier’s behaviour may be, he falls back into childhood in most important respects. He no longer eats with a knife and fork, but instead spoons gruel into his mouth. He no longer goes to the toilet on his own, but sits on a public latrine like a child in a nursery. He suppresses his own will to an extraordinary degree, obeying blindly and unconditionally, as a small child obeys adults whom it trusts or who force it to comply. His feelings of love and hate, of liking and aversion, are directed at his superiors, who replace father and mother, and at his comrades who represent siblings. In this seamlessly childish existence, where destruction plays as big a part as it does in the nursery, there is no room for relationships between men and women except in the imagination. Furthermore, soldiers like children are spared the struggle for their daily bread and do not have to deal with the relationship between earnings and productive work, with the toil, labour and rewards that are such an integral part of adult life. And so the erotic impulse is much stronger in the creative envi
ronment of peace than in the destructive one of war, where it can easily be diverted to the same sex, completing the analogy with childhood. But after the shock and physical agony of the first weeks in hospital, there is a rebirth, a sort of maturing such as follows the torture of puberty in primitive communities, and the young men start to look around themselves with new eyes, discover that there are women and are thrown into turmoil. But towards Bertin, who was denied the blessings of this rebirth, they were unconsciously patronising, like 15-year-olds to a nine-year-old, treating him like a lower being, harmless and inadequate. What did he know of adult secrets?
CHAPTER TEN
The misanthrope
AS SISTER KLÄRE made her way to room 19 to do some ironing as promised, who should be carrying her ironing board, a joyful smile of farewell on his chubby face despite the white bandage round his neck, but Father Lochner. As before, the divisional Catholic chaplain from the other bank sported flying coat tails and a violet collar. ‘Lieutenant!’ he cried, more Rhenish than ever, ‘Ah’m mad happy to see you, so I am.’ (The phrase ‘mad happy’ could cover a wide range of insanity.) And as he carefully laid the white-covered board, which was almost as a tall as a man, against the wall, he took Kroysing’s right hand in both of his and shook it for such a long time that Kroysing almost began to look uncomfortable. He briefly greeted Bertin then introduced himself to the other two patients, sat down on a bed, slightly out of breath, and watched as Sister Kläre erected a bridge between the table and the window frame, while Bertin, kneeling on the table, carefully plugged the iron into an adaptor. For a moment, the room was plunged into darkness. He heard a voice whispering in his ear: ‘I won’t leave you in the lurch.’ When the light bulb flashed on a second later, Sister Kläre was busily arranging her washing as though nothing had happened. It was very nice of the nurse, thought Bertin, as he sat down on a stool in the corner and listened to Kroysing and Father Lochner’s talking – it was really very nice of Sister Kläre to console him and offer him her help. But she had clearly overestimated her range, to use of a favourite word of Kroysing’s. Posnanski had had to leave the matter with a representative, and by God they needed one, and he was sure to be a more powerful man than anyone Sister Kläre might be able to produce. Well, he wouldn’t agonise about it any more. The judge advocate had probably meant his divisional commander or someone else who had enough influence with Group East to reverse Herr Jansch’s cocky refusal. In any case, it was very nice to sit here freshly bathed and lice-free, to doze a little and enjoy the moment. Because the lice would get stuck into him again that night. His undeloused sleeping bag or his neighbour Lebehde or the man under him would see to that. Lice were as unavoidable as fate, and as long as you were ensconced in communal accommodation and the misery of war you couldn’t get away from them. And he mustn’t forget that Sister Kläre had asked him to write a dedication in her copy of Love at Last Sight.
Father Lochner was at the hospital to be treated for a carbuncle, an ugly deep red swelling on his neck. He’d made the difficult decision to have it lanced and he’d have to prevail on the doctors’ kindness a few more times. So, even godless doctors were doing God’s work with their dexterous hands.
Kroysing was almost irritated by the priest and his good mood. What was this outsider doing breaking in on this private hour? It was bad enough to have to share the vision of Sister Kläre with his comrades, her coming and goings with the ironing board, those duties of a maid – a maid he could regard more directly and desire more keenly now her secret had been revealed. But Father Lochner was so overjoyed to find Kroysing unhurt after all the adventures around Douaumont…
‘Unhurt!’ cried Kroysing indignantly, pointing to the thick bandages on his foot. ‘Hind paw.’ That was nothing, insisted Father Lochner, nothing at all compared to the dreadful possibilities he’d escaped. ‘Thanks,’ said Kroysing. ‘It was quite enough for me.’
Not to be deterred, Father Lochner pointed to the thousands upon thousands of men who had given their lives for the Fatherland. Kroysing had fared extremely well and now he would see the homeland again and return to his profession in one of the factories essential to the war effort… ‘Definitely,’ Kroysing nodded. ‘I can’t wait to return to my profession. My profession is being a soldier, and I’m going to transfer to the air force.’
‘Oh,’ said Father Lochner startled, that was very admirable but he had more than fulfilled his duty and should now think about himself and his future.
‘Rubbish!’ retorted Kroysing, as the others listened intently. He wasn’t talking about duty; he was talking about his own enjoyment. Surely the priest knew that he was a heathen, an avowed disciple of the religion of killing. Instead of hobbling around on the ground, he wanted to soar up into the clouds and rain avenging fire down on the heads of his enemies.
Father Lochner hung his head sadly. He had hoped Kroysing’s afflictions might have mellowed him. And his private dispute? he asked. He didn’t know if he could mention it openly?
‘My quarrel with that scoundrel Niggl? Say what you like. Everyone in this room knows about it or is a fellow sufferer. Nothing has changed, Father. I’ll hunt him down. And if he’s promoted to major soon…’
‘He’s been promoted,’ Father Lochner broke in.
‘…then he’ll be over all of us as a result of his actions.’
There was pause. Sister Kläre let the iron rest on its tripod for a moment. They all looked at him, this wild hunter, who admitted his vendetta so openly, simply pushing aside the New and Old Testaments, both of which replaced individual and clan vengeance with the rule of law and public justice. Then the iron began to steam again. Father Lochner folded his hands in resignation: in that case the matter must be left to Providence and hopefully it would turn out well for Lieutenant Kroysing. He just hoped that when the time came he’d have as peaceful an end as that little sergeant from Douaumont three days ago in the field hospital at Chaumont… Kroysing, who’d been lying down, slowly pulled himself up. ‘Do you mean my friend Sergeant Süßmann is dead?’
Yes, Father Lochner nodded. That was the name. That young sapper who guided you to the infantry position, the very same.
‘Impossible,’ groaned Kroysing hoarsely, clearing his throat. ‘He went to a training course in Brandenburg.’
But, quietly implacable, the priest insisted: he must have been sent back into the field in the meantime. Since the beginning of the year, training courses had increasingly been held in the communications zone. As though drawn by a magnet, Bertin had moved past the ironing nurse and now stood at the head of Kroysing’s bed. ‘Süßmann,’ he said simply. ‘Our little Süßmann.’
According to Father Lochner it had been an accident during grenade throwing training for recruits and had happened very quickly. One of them, an elderly man, couldn’t get to grips with the grenade, and Süßmann stepped out of cover to show him how to handle it one more time, having been assured by the future sapper that he hadn’t taken the pin out. Then as Süßmann walked towards him the man dropped the hand grenade and ran away. Immediate explosion, half of which caught Süßmann, the other the unfortunate recruit, a hireling from Mecklenburg. He died immediately, but Süßmann lasted until the evening after he was admitted to hospital and didn’t suffer much. Dr Baer, the military Rabbi, had been with him at the end. Between two morphine injections, he’d dictated a few sentences, including one for Lieutenant Kroysing. ‘Write to my parents that it was worth it and to Lieutenant Kroysing that it wasn’t. It was a swindle.’ Apart from a few wild utterances in his death throes, an exemplary soldier had gone to his final rest, and his memory would certainly be preserved by the grateful Fatherland.
Kroysing turned to Bertin. ‘Our little Süßmann,’ he repeated sadly. ‘Escaped twice from the hell of Douaumont only to be done for by some hick from Mecklenburg. And he was so sure – so sure – that death had spat him out once and for all and he’d probably outlive the Wandering Jew. No, I don’t want to hear any more today.’
And he turned to the wall.
Bertin stared down at him, arms hanging. No one was safe, and it was always the wrong ones who got it. Every minute a man was taken, and no one cared. Yes, Pelican and Sergeant Fürth had been right. There’d be nothing but rubbish left in Germany if things went on like this. And eyes full of dread, he looked round the comfortable room where the smell of ironed sheets now mingled with that of cigarettes. They all had plans for the future. He was trying to be transferred to the Lychow Division court martial, Kroysing wanted to join the air force, Lieutenant Mettner wanted to return to his study of mathematics and Lieutenant Flachsbauer wanted if possible to join the world of commerce where his father’s company was eagerly awaiting him. Sister Kläre and the priest no doubt had clear plans too, just like Pahl down the corridor, who wanted to organise strikes in Germany. So many decisions and ideas! ‘Nothing is final as long as we live,’ was how his novel ended. Existence was always uncertain. A tile could fall on your head at any moment; an electric cable might snap and kill you. In Upper Silesia a parson had been killed when the fly wheel broke loose at a pumping station, flew through the air and crashed into the roof of the parsonage, crushing the parson at his dinner. But in war such accidents became part of a malicious system that multiplied them tenfold – a hundredfold at the front. Death wasn’t unusual; survival was unusual.
Outside Verdun Page 42
