Captain Lauber sat crestfallen at one end of his sofa and at the other sat Major Niggl, full of concern. An armchair was pulled up for Major Jansch, a rare visitor, and he was given a glass of cherry brandy and offered a cigar. Indeed no, Captain Lauber wasn’t smoking that day either. He didn’t feel like it. He’d received dreadful news from the Dannevoux field hospital via the brigade headquarters: the plane that wreaked havoc on Damvillers station had smashed up Dannevoux field hospital beforehand. Definitely a breach of international law. Of course the French would maintain it had been an accident if representatives of the Red Cross raised a complaint. They’d punish the airman or replace him, and they might not even do that. But that wouldn’t bring back Lieutenant Kroysing, who had been killed with a number of other wounded. Major Niggl nodded his head sympathetically. His little pale eyes were full of deepest condolences as they sought the captain’s dark eyes. Surely not the Lieutenant Kroysing he’d fought beside at Douaumont, he asked. And Captain Lauber nodded. Of course it was him; there was only one lieutenant of that name in the army. And there weren’t many officers of his calibre. He’d had high hopes for him and expected him to go far. It was from such tempered steel that the bonds had been forged that held the front together. Such men guaranteed the nation’s future: affable, always ready to listen to the men’s concerns, relentless in the pursuit of duty, completely and utterly committed. And to think how happy they’d been that the lad had escaped unharmed from that lice-infested pile of rubble that was Douaumont and had come through that mess on 14 December without serious injury, and now a stupid aerial bomb had landed on his head and killed him off. Well, today was a black day. Today the world felt like a speck in his eye. This war in the air reduced war to a kind of trade for mechanics, photographers and hurlers of bombers – it was time to abolish it and replace it with something more sensible, something that didn’t mean it was always the best men who got destroyed. It was a great and wonderful thing to defend the Fatherland, to use intelligent means and brave men to prevail against an intelligent and brave opponent. He used to have joking quarrels with his friend Reinhart about whether the heavy artillery had spelt the end of that. But when it came to this flying business, there no was point in wasting breath. It wasn’t proper; it was bloody idiotic – be done with it. So, Lieutenant Kroysing was gone too; maybe it would be his turn next. That would be fine by him. Let the next airman crack his skull the way his little boy cracked walnuts at Christmas. But until then one had carry on working, do one’s duty, look neither right nor left. His two visitors got up. Major Niggl shook the Swabian’s hand, all innocence. He and Lieutenant Kroysing had not always seen eye to eye, he said. That could happen among comrades. But that he’d now been taken from them was enough to make a man spew, and he hoped that his friend Lauber would soon recover from the knock and take a more cheerful view of the world.
Shaking his head and almost bowing, he walked to the door and went out to where the two horses were tethered, nuzzling one another trustingly, the neck of one laid against the other’s mane. Open-mouthed with admiration for his friend Niggl, Major Jansch followed him out into the open air. For many decades to come, he recalled that feeling whenever he met the Bavarian.
CHAPTER SIX
The legacy
IN AN EMPTY barracks, words echo uncomfortably. For that reason, it’s best to speak in a hushed voice. During the morning, Private Bertin was informed by Sergeant Barkopp himself that he was to pack his things and return to the company. Private Lebehde went with him; he wanted to help him. The things that had happened the previous night, whose consequences were visible that morning, made the two men want to stick together. It was a beautiful day outside; the march to Etraye-East would be tiring but enjoyable. Lebehde the inn-keeper and Bertin the lawyer had spread Bertin’s coat out on one of the bunks and folded the arms in accordance with army regulations, and now they were rolling it up into a sausage that was as tight and even as possible: no wrinkles, no knots. Both men had been on sentry duty and looked pale. The news about the havoc the enemy aircraft had wreaked had been brought to them by the railwaymen around 8am. Both of them had scarcely begun to digest the fact that Wilhelm Pahl was no longer in the world. Bertin shook his head inwardly as he performed his tasks and sometimes he actually did shake it to the surprise of uninitiated observers. A banner kept running through his head upon which nothing was written but three words: Pahl and Kroysing… Pahl and Kroysing… had he looked more closely, he’d have observed within himself a child’s amazement at the immense forces of destruction available to life on earth. Kroysing and Pahl… Pahl and Kroysing… A peculiar world, an extremely funny world.
That day Lebehde’s freckles stood out particularly clearly on the pale skin of his round face. His thick fingers rolled the coat up with peerless precision. ‘I imagine they might dig a mass grave in Dannevoux cemetery tonight for the men from last night. They won’t take up much space now.’
‘A load of flaky skin,’ said Bertin senselessly. ‘To the earth it’ll just be flaky skin.’ In his mind he saw a confused mess of white and charred bones, skulls with no jaws and jaws with no skulls, the skeleton of a foot lying in a ribcage. Pahl had exceptionally small hands for an adult, Kroysing exceptionally large ones. ‘Do you think they’ll put the lieutenant with the men?’ he asked.
‘Hmm,’ replied Lebehde. ‘The way I see it, yes, they will. The medical officer is a sensible man, and one grave is less work than two. And at the Resurrection the angel on duty will be able to sort them out. You’re lucky,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘You’re getting out of here, which is the best thing you could do.’
Bertin shrugged his shoulders and hung his gaunt, wasted head. He felt guilty that he was leaving his comrades in the lurch. He couldn’t deny that he had a bad conscience.
Meanwhile, Lebehde contemplated their handiwork: the long tube of coat. Even the Kaiser wouldn’t be ashamed to buckle that to his pack. Then with Bertin’s help he bent it round the rucksack – they had to keep an iron grip on the ends as they did so – and slung the right strap round it, while Bertin slung the left one round. He’d always been surprised that Bertin hadn’t cleared off well before now, he said in the meantime.
‘But you’re my company,’ murmured Bertin, as he secured the upper coat strap round the middle of the sausage.
Lebehde looked at him wide-eyed. What good had his staying there done them or anyone else in the world? And who had asked him to invest so much in their comradeship?
Bertin stepped back, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his rucksack, his head to one side. That was how he’d always felt, he said slowly, and after a pause he added that he had no explanation for it. He didn’t say anything about his inability to change things once he’d got himself into them; Lebehde wouldn’t think very highly of that.
Lebehde helped himself to one of Bertin’s cigarettes, which he’d been going to leave him anyway. He said he thought those kinds of feelings were inappropriate. A man encumbered by those kinds of feelings could wind up in Hell’s kitchen. ‘Wilhelm,’ he said suddenly, ‘would have understood that very well. Feelings are for toffs. Sometimes I think they’ve standardised all our feelings for their own ends. Let me tell you something, my friend. What’s important for the likes of us is to think. The more we think, the more clearly we see things, the better it’ll be for us. I take it you’re not offended by me including you with us, Comrade?’