The Road Back (10 page)

Kosole, as it happened, was digging in the trench just at that spot and Seelig landed square on the top of his head—a good two hundredweight of live meat! Kosole swore blue murder. Then he recognised the sergeant-major, but being an old hand—this was 1918—he did not let that deter him. The S.M. picked himself up, saw Kosole in front of him, exploded, and began to abuse him. Kosole yelled back. Bethke, who was also down there, tried to part them. But the sergeant-major spat with rage, and Kosole, justly regarding himself as the aggrieved party, returned as good as he got. Willy now jumped in also to lend Kosole a hand. A terrific uproar arose from the grave.

"Steady," said someone suddenly. Though the voice was quiet, the din ceased immediately. Seelig, puffing and blowing, clambered out of the grave. His uniform was white with the soft chalk, he looked for all the world like a gingerbread baby covered in icing sugar. Kosole and Bethke climbed out likewise.

On top, leaning on his walking-stick, stood Ludwig Breyer. Until now he had been lying out in the open before the dugout, with two greatcoats over him—he was suffering then his first bad attack of dysentery.

"What's the trouble?" he asked. Three men tried to tell him at once. Wearily Ludwig checked them. "Anyway, what does it matter?"

The S.M. insisted that Kosole had struck him on the chest. At this Kosole flared up again.

"Steady," said Ludwig once more. There was silence again. "Have you got all the identity discs, Albert?" he then asked. "Yes," replied Trosske, adding softly, so that Kosole should not hear it: "Schröder's among them."

For a moment each looked at the other. Then Ludwig said: "Ah, then he wasn't taken prisoner? Which is he?"

Albert led him along the line, Broger and I following— Schröder was our schoolfellow. Trosske stopped before a body, the head of which was covered with a sandbag. Breyer stooped. Albert pulled him back. "Don't uncover, Ludwig," he implored. Breyer turned round. "Albert," he said quietly.

Of the upper part of Schröder's body nothing was recognisable. It was as flat as a flounder. The face was like a board in which a black, oblique hole with a ring of teeth marked the mouth. Without a word Breyer covered it over again. "Does he know?" he asked, looking toward where Kosole was digging. Albert shook his head. "See to it that the S.M. clears off," said he, "otherwise there'll be trouble."

Schröder had been Kosole's friend. We had never understood it quite, for Schröder was delicate and frail, a mere child, and the direct opposite of Ferdinand. Yet Ferdinand used to look after him like a mother.

Behind us stood someone puffing. Seelig had followed us and was standing there with staring eyes. "I never saw the like of that before," he stammered. "However did it happen?"

No one answered. Schroder should really have gone home on leave eight days ago. But because Seelig disliked him and Kosole, he bitched it for him. And now Schröder was dead.

We walked off. We could not bear to see Seelig at that moment. Ludwig crawled in under his greatcoats once more. Only Albert remained. Seelig stared at the corpse. The moon came out from behind a cloud and shone down upon it. The fat body stooped forward. The sergeant-major stood there and peered down into the pallid face below, upon which an inconceivable expression of horror was frozen to a stillness that almost screamed.

"Better say the prayer now and get back," said Albert coldly.

The sergeant-major wiped his forehead. "I can't," he murmured.—The horror had caught him. We had all had that experience: for weeks together a man might feel nothing, then suddenly there would come some new, unforeseen thing and it would break him under.—With green face he stumbled off to the dugout.

"He imagined they pelted you with jujubes up here," said Tjaden drily.

The rain fell more heavily. The sergeant-major did not return. At last we fetched Ludwig Breyer from under his overcoats once again. In a quiet voice he repeated a Paternoster.

We passed the dead down. Weil lent a hand below, taking them from us. I noticed that he was trembling. Almost inaudibly he was whispering: "You shall be avenged." Again and again. I looked at him, astonished.

"What's got you?" I asked him. "These aren't the first, you know. You'll have your work cut out avenging them all." Then he said no more.

When we had packed in the first rows, Valentin and Jupp came stumbling up with a stretcher.

"This bloke's alive still," said Jupp, setting down the waterproof.

Kosole gave it a glance. "Not for long, though," said he. "We might wait for him."

The man on the stretcher choked and gasped intermittently. At each breath the blood ran down over his chin.

"Any use carrying him out?" asked Jupp.

"He'd only die just the same," said Albert, pointing to the blood.

We turned him over on his side, and Max Weil attended to him while we went on with our work. Valentin was helping me now. We passed Glaser down. "My God! think of his wife!" murmured Valentin.

"Look out, here comes Schröder," Jupp called to us as he let the waterproof slide.

"Shut your mouth!" hissed Broger.

Kosole still had the body in his arms. "Who?" he asked uncomprehending.

"Schröder," repeated Jupp, supposing Ferdinand knew already.

"Don't be funny, you bloody fool I he was captured," growled Kosole angrily.

"It is, Ferdinand," said Albert Trosske, who was standing near-by.

We held our breath. Kosole gathered up the body and climbed out. He took his torch from his pocket and shone it upon the corpse. He stooped down close over what was left of the face and examined it.

"Thank God, the S.M.'s gone," whispered Karl.

We stood motionless through the next seconds. Kosole straightened himself up. "Give's a shovel," said he sharply. I handed him one. We expected bloody murder. But Kosole merely began to dig. Allowing none to help him he made a grave for Schröder apart. He placed him in it himself. He was too stricken to think of Seelig.

By dawn both graves were finished. The wounded man had died in the meantime, so we put him in with the rest. After treading the ground firm we set up the crosses. With a copying-pencil Kosole wrote Schröder's name on one that was still blank, and hung a steel helmet on top of it.

Ludwig came once more. We removed our helmets and he repeated a second Paternoster. Albert stood pale beside him. Schröder used to sit with him at school. But Kosole looked terrible. He was quite grey and decayed, and said never a word.

We stood about yet a while and the rain fell steadily. Then the coffee fatigue came and we sat down to eat.

As soon as it was light the sergeant-major came up out of a dugout near-by. We supposed he had been gone long ago. He stank of rum for miles and now only wanted to get back to the rear. Kosole let out a bellow when he saw him. Luckily Willy was by. He sprang at Kosole and held him fast. But it took four of us all our strength to keep him from breaking loose and murdering Seelig. It was a full hour before he had sufficiently recovered his senses to see that he would only make trouble for himself if he went after him. But by Schröder's grave he swore to get even with Seelig.

Now there stands Seelig at the bar, and not five yards from him sits Kosole. But neither is a soldier any longer.

For the third time the orchestrion thunders out the march from
The Merry Widow
.

"Another round of schnapps, mate," cries Tjaden, his little pig's eyes sparkling. "Coming up!" answers Seelig, bringing the glasses. "Health, comrades!"

Kosole looks at him scowling.

"You're no comrade of ours," he grunts. Seelig takes the bottle under his arm. "No? Very well then—that's that," he retorts and goes back behind the bar.

Valentin tosses down the schnapps. "Soak it up, Ferdinand," says he, "that's the main thing."

Willy orders the next round. Tjaden is already half tight. "Well, Seelig, you old blighter," he bawls, "no more field punishment now, eh? Have one with me!" He slaps his former superior officer so heartily on the back that it nearly chokes him. A year ago that would have been enough to land him for court-martial, or in a mad-house.

Kosole looks from the bar to his glass and from his glass back again to the bar, and at the fat, obsequious fellow behind the beer pumps. He shakes his head. "It's not the same man, you know, Ernst," he says.

So it seems to me also. I hardly recognise Seelig now. In my mind he was so much of one piece with his notebook and his uniform, that I could hardly even have imagined what he would look like in his shirt, to say nothing of this bar-tender. And now here he is fetching a glass for himself, and letting Tjaden, who used to be of less account to him than a louse, slap him on the back and call him "Old fellow-my-lad!"—Damn it, but the world is clean upsidedown!

Willy gives Kosole a dig in the ribs to stir him up. "Well?"

"I don't know, Willy," says Ferdinand bewildered. "Think I ought to give him a smack over the mug, or not? I didn't expect it would be like this. Just get an eyeful of the way he is running about serving, slimy old shit! I just haven't the heart to do it."

Tjaden orders and orders. To him it is a hell of a joke to see his superior officer go hopping about at his bidding.

Seelig also has got outside of a good many by this time, and his bull-dog cranium glows again, partly from alcohol and partly from the joys of good business.

"Let's bury the hatchet," he suggests, "and I'll stand a round of good pre-war rum."

"Of what?" says Kosole stiffening.

"Rum. I've still a spot or two left in the cupboard there," says Seelig innocently, going to fetch it. Kosole looks as if he had been struck in the face and glares after him.

"He's forgotten all about it, Ferdinand," says Willy. "He wouldn't have risked that else."

Seelig comes back and pours out the drinks. Kosole glowers at him.

"I suppose you don't remember getting tight on rum from sheer funk once, eh? You ought to be a night watchman in a morgue, you ought!"

Seelig makes a pacifying gesture. "That was a long time ago," says he. "That doesn't count any more."

Ferdinand lapses into silence again. If Seelig would but once speak out of his turn the fun would begin. But this compliance puzzles Kosole and leaves him irresolute.

Tjaden sniffs at his glass appreciatively, and the rest of us lift our noses. It is good rum, no mistake.

Kosole knocks over his glass. "You're not standing me anything!"

"Ach, man!" cries Tjaden, "you might have given it to me, then!" With his fingers he tries to save what he can; but it is not much.

The place empties little by little. "Closing time, gentlemen!" cries Seelig, and pulls down the revolving shutter. We get up to go.

"Well, Ferdinand?" I say. He shakes his head. He cannot bring himself to it. That waiter there, that's not the real Seelig at all.

Seelig opens the door for us. "Au revoir, gentlemen! pleasant dreams!"

"Gentlemen!" sniggers Tjaden. "Gentlemen!—'Swine' he used to say."

Kosole is already almost outside when, glancing back along the floor, his eyes light on Seelig's legs, still clad in the same ill-omened leggings as of old. His trousers, too, have the same close-fitting military cut with piping down the seams.

From the waist up he is inn keeper; but from the waist down sergeant-major. That settles it.

Ferdinand swings round suddenly. Seelig retreats, and Kosole makes after him. "Now, what about it?" he snarls. "Schröder! Schröder! Schröder! Do you remember him now, you dog, damn you? Take that one, from Schröder!" His left goes home. "Greetings from the common grave!" He hits again. The inn keeper dodges, jumps behind the counter and grabs a hammer. It catches Kosole across the face and glances off his shoulder. But Kosole does not even wince, he is so enraged. He grasps hold of Seelig, and bashes his head down on the counter—there is a clatter of glass. He turns on the beer taps. "There, drink, you bloody rum keg! Suffocate, drown in your stinking pigs'-wash."

The beer pours down Seelig's neck, it streams through his shirt into his breeches, making them swell out on his legs like balloons. Seelig bellows with rage—It is no easy thing to get such beer in these days—At last he manages to free himself and seizes a glass, with which he drives upwards against Kosole's chin.

"Foul!" cries Willy, from where he stands in the doorway watching. "He should have butted him in the guts, and then pulled his legs from under him!"

None of us interferes. This is Kosole's show. Even if he were to get a hiding, it would not be our business to help him. We stand by merely to see that no ones tries to help Seelig. But Tjaden has already explained the matter in half a dozen words, and nobody is now disposed to take his part.