The Road Back (9 page)

Albert and I are sitting in the Café Meyer by the window. Before us on the marble table are two glasses of cold coffee. We have been here three hours now without yet being able to make up our minds to drink such bitter brew. We have made the acquaintance of most varieties at the Front, but this stuff is straight stewed coal.

Three tables only are occupied. At one a couple of profiteers are making a deal over a truck-load of food-stuff; at another is a married couple reading newspapers; and at the third we are sprawling our ill-mannered backsides all over the red plush settle.

The curtains are grimy, the waitress is yawning, the air is sticky, and altogether there is not much to be said for it—and yet to our mind there is a great deal to be said for it. We squat there contentedly—we have loads of time, the orchestra is playing, and we can see out the window.

So we remain, until at last the three musicians pack up their things and the waitress moves sourly in ever diminishing circles round our table. Then we pay and move off into the evening. It is marvellous to pass so idly from one shop window to the next, not to have to trouble about anything, just to be freed men.

At Struben Street we call a halt. "What about going in to see Becker?" I say.

"Good idea," agrees Albert. "Let's. That will make him talk, I bet!"

We spent a good part of our school days in Becker's shop. One could buy every imaginable thing here: notebooks, drawing materials, butterfly nets, acquariums, collections of postage stamps, antique books and cribs with the answers to algebraical problems. We would sit for hours in Becker's—it was here we used to smoke cigarettes on the sly, and here too that we had our first stolen meetings with the girls from the City School. He was our great confidant.

We go in. A couple of schoolboys in a corner hastily conceal their cigarettes in the hollow of their hands. We smile and put on airs a little. A girl comes and asks what we want.

"We would like to speak to Herr Becker, if you please," I say. The girl hesitates. "Can I not attend to you?"

"No, Fräulein," I reply, "that you can't! Just call Herr Becker, will you?"

She goes off and we spruce ourselves up, thrusting our hands deep into our trousers pockets with a swaggering air. That should fetch him!

We hear the old familiar tinkle of the office door opening, and out comes Becker, little, grey, and unkempt as ever. He blinks a moment. Then he recognises us. "Weil! Berkholz and Trosske!" says he. "Back again, eh?"

"Yes," we say quickly, awaiting the outburst.

"That's fine! And what will you have?" he asks. "Cigarettes?"

We are taken aback and feel rather sheepish. We didn't want to buy anything, that was not our idea. "Yes," I say at last, "ten, please."

He gives us them. "Well, till next time!" says he and shuffles off. We stand there a moment. "Forgotten something?" he calls from where he stands on the few steps.

"No, no" we answer and go.

"Well!" I say once we are outside. "He seems to think we've just been off on a bit of a walk!"

Albert makes a listless gesture. "Civilian beetle——"

We stroll on. Late in the evening we run into Willy and set off together for the barracks.

En route Willy suddenly springs to one side, and I crouch down likewise. The unmistakable howl of a shell coming—then we look round mystified and laugh. It was merely the screech of an electric team.

Jupp and Valentin, looking rather forlorn, are squatting in a great empty room meant to accommodate a whole platoon. Tjaden has not come back yet apparently. He is still at the brothel, no doubt. At sight of us their faces beam with satisfaction—now they will be able to make up a game of skat.

The short time has sufficed for Jupp to become a Soldiers' Councillor. He just appointed himself, and now continues to be one for the reason that the confusion in the barracks is such that no one knows any difference. It will do to keep him for the moment, his civil occupation having gone west. The solicitor for whom he used to work in Cologne has written to tell him that women are now doing the work excellently and more cheaply, whereas Jupp during his time in the army will have grown out of office requirements, no doubt. He deeply regrets it, so he says; the times are hard. Best wishes for the future.

"It's a cow!" says Jupp glumly. "All these years a man has been living for just one thing—to get clear of the Prussians—and now he has to be thankful if he is able to stay on—Well, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other—I'll go eighteen."

Willy has a corker of a hand. "Twenty," I answer for him. "And you, Valentin?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Twenty-four."

As Jupp passes forty Karl Bröger appears. "Just thought I'd look in and see what you were doing," he says.

"So you looked in here, eh?" says Willy with a smirk, settling himself down large and comfortable. "Well, I suppose barracks are the soldier's real home, if it comes to that. Forty-one!"

"Forty-six," advances Valentin, defiantly.

"Forty-eight," Willy thunders back.

"Christ! This is big bidding!" We draw in closer. Willy leans back luxuriously against the locker and shows us privately a Grand. But Valentin is grinning ominously—he has the still more powerful Nul Ouvert up his sleeve.

It is wonderfully cosy in the barracks here. A stump of candle stands flickering on the table and the bedsteads loom dimly in the shadows. Then the great chunks of cheese that Jupp has scrounged up from somewhere. He proffers each his portion on the end of a bayonet. We munch contentedly.

"Fifty!" says Valentin.

The door flings open and in bursts Tjaden. "Se—Se—" he stutters and in his excitement develops a terrible hiccough. We lead him with upraised arms round the room. "Did the whores pinch your money?" asks Willy sympathetically.

He shakes his head. "Se—Se——"

"Halt!" shouts Willy, in a voice of command.

Tjaden springs to attention. The hiccough has gone.

"Seelig—I've found Seelig," he cries jubilantly.

"Boy," roars Willy, "if you lie, I'll pitch you clean out the window!"

Seelig was our company sergeant-major, a pig of the first water. Unfortunately two months before the Revolution he was transferred, so that we have not as yet been able to get track of him. Tjaden explains that he is running a pub, the "König Wilhelm," and keeps a marvellous good drop of beer.

"Let's go!" I shout, and we troop out.

"But not without Ferdinand," says Willy. "We must find him first."—Ferdinand has an account to settle with Seelig on Schröder's behalf.

In front of Kosole's house we whistle and cat-call until at last he comes fuming to the window in his nightshirt. "What the hell's up with you—at this hour of night?" he growls. "Don't you know I'm a married man?"

"Plenty of time for that," shouts Willy. "Shake a leg, come down out of it, we've found Seelig."

Ferdinand now shows signs of interest. "Honest?" he asks.

"As true as I'm standing here," Tjaden assures him.

"Righto, I'm coming!" he answers. "But God help you if 
you're pulling my leg "

Five minutes later he joins us below and learns how matters stand. We push off.

As we turn into Hook Street, Willy in his excitement bumps into a chap and sends him head over heels. "You great rhinoceros!" the man on the ground shouts after him.

Willy turns about sharply and stands over him threateningly. "Pardon! did you speak?" he asks touching his cap. The other picks himself up and looks at Willy. "Not that I can remember," he answers sullenly.

"Just as well for you!" says Willy. "You haven't the right build to be insulting."

We cut across the park and pull up outside the "König Wilhelm." The name has already been painted over. It is now called the
Edleweiss
. Willy reaches for the latch.

"Half a mo'!" Kosole lays hold of his great paw. "Willy," he says, almost imploringly, "if it comes to a dust up, I do the dusting! Is that right? Give us your hand on it."

"Right you are," agrees Willy, and throws open the door.

Noise, light and thick smoke come out to meet us. The clinking of glasses. An orchestrion is thundering the march from
The Merry Widow
. The taps along the counter sparkle. An eddy of laughter is swirling about the bar-sink where two girls are rinsing the froth from the empty glasses. A swarm of men stands clustered around them. They are exchanging jokes. Water slops over, mirroring the faces, tattered and distorted. An artilleryman orders a round of schnapps, at the same time pinching the girl's behind. "Good pre-war stuff, this, eh, Lina?" he roars jovially.

We elbow our way in. "So! there he is!" says Willy.

With sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned, sweating, with moist red neck, behind the counter stands the host drawing off the beer, that streams down brown and golden from under his fat hands into the glasses. Now he looks up. A broad grin spreads over his face. "Hullo! You here! What's it to be, light or dark?"

"Light, Herr Sergeant-Major," replies Tjaden impudently. He counts us with his eyes.

"Seven," says Willy.

"Seven," repeats Seelig with a glance at Ferdinand, "six—and Kosole, by Jove!"

Ferdinand pushes up to the counter. He leans with both hands against the edge of it. "Say, Seelig, have you got any rum?"

Seelig fusses about behind his row of nickle pump-handles. "Rum? Why, yes, of course I've got rum."

Kosole looks up at him. "You're rather partial to it, if I remember?"

Seelig is filling a row of cognac glasses. "Yes, I do rather like it, as a matter of fact."

"Happen to remember the last time you got tight on it?"

"No, can't say I do——
"

"But I dol" shouts Kosole, standing at the counter like a bull glaring over a hedge. "Ever hear the name Schröder?"

"Schröder?—It's a very common name, Schröder," says Seelig casually.

That is too much for Kosole. He gets ready to spring. But Willy seizes him and pushes him down into a chair. "Drink first—Seven light!" he repeats over the bar.

Kosole is silent. We sit down at a table. Seelig brings us the pints himself. "Good health!" says he.

"Good health!" answers Tjaden, and we drink. Tjaden leans back. "There now, didn't I tell you?"

Ferdinand's eyes follow Seelig as he goes back behind
the counter. "My God," he mutters fiercely, "and to think 
how that swob stank of rum the night we buried 
Schröder——"

He breaks off.

"Now don't come unstuck," says Tjaden gently.

Then, as though Kosole's words had suddenly plucked aside a curtain that until now had but lightly swayed and shifted, a grey, ghostly desolation begins to unfold there in the bar-room. The windows disappear, shadows rise up through the floor-boards and memory hovers in the smoke-laden air.

There had never been any love lost between Kosole and Seelig, but it was not until August of 1918 that they became deadly enemies. We were holding a stretch of battered trench at the time just in rear of the front line and had to work all the night digging a common grave. We were unable to make it very deep, because the water in the ground soon began to seep in. At the end we were working knee deep in mud.

Bethke, Wessling, and Kosole were kept busy shoring up the sides. The rest of us gathered the corpses that lay about in the area ahead of us, and placed them side by side, in a long row till the grave should be ready. Albert Trosske, our section corporal, removed any identity discs or paybooks that they still had on them.

A few of the dead had already black, putrefied faces—putrefaction was rapid during the wet months. On the other hand they did not stink quite so badly as in summer. Some of them were soaked and sodden with water like sponges. One we found lying flat, spread-eagled on the ground. Only when we took him up did we see that there was practically nothing left of him but the rags of his uniform, he was so pulped. His identity disc was gone too. We only recognised him finally by a patch in his trousers. Lance-Corporal Glaser, it was. He was light to carry, for almost half of him was missing.

Such stray arms, legs or heads as we found we set apart on a waterproof sheet by themselves. "That'll do," said Bethke, when we had brought up Glaser, "we won't get any more in."

We fetched a few sandbags full of chloride of lime. Jupp scattered it about the wide trench with a flat shovel. Max Weil turned up soon after with a few crosses that he had brought from the dump. Then to our astonishment Serjeant-Major Seelig also appeared out of the darkness. As there was no padre handy and both our officers were sick, he had been told off, apparently, to pronounce the prayer for the dead. He was feeling rather sore about it; he could not bear the sight of blood—and besides he was so fat. He was nightblind, too, and could hardly see in the dark. All this together made him so jumpy that he overstepped the edge of the grave and fell in. Tjaden burst out laughing, and called in a subdued voice: "Shovel, boys! Shovel him in!"