Lunch passed pleasantly. Many of the men retired for a nap. Others drank their coffee. Captain Lauber invited his guest to a game of chess, as work didn’t begin again until half past two. Eberhard Kroysing was an excellent chess player. The coffee tasted good and so did his cigar. He’d soon begin a game of chess with an unknown adversary and he’d be back in his lair before the Frogs fired over their evening blessing. Life was worth living.
The hot and cloudy August day hung oppressively over the rolling hilltops. Jackets unbuttoned, Captain Lauber and his guest strolled through the long, narrow fruit garden where farmers who’d now been displaced had once grown cider apples. Squat, leafy trees stood in the middle of a grassy patch, groaning under the weight of their green fruits. The captain said the trees fruited like that back home in Göppingen too, except the Swabian apples ripened red, those here yellow. That was the only difference. And for that they were at war with each other.
Eberhard Kroysing was enjoying the company of this intelligent superior officer. He had to curb his stride beside the shorter man but was happy to do so. The captain said it was much better to discuss things in the open under the flitting shadow of the leaves than in the low-ceilinged farm house. No one could deny that, said Kroysing. The captain replied that he must have the initials O.C. for Sapper Officer Commanding after his name to talk like that. An ordinary lieutenant wouldn’t dare. Even a lieutenant can think, said Kroysing. Even as a soldier he’d learnt that – especially as a soldier.
‘Not many did,’ snarled Captain Lauber. His short-cropped hair was greying at the temples and he was going on top. He waved away the persistent flies attacking his bald patch and asked how things were at the front. No beating about the bush. The short, sharp truth between men. He wanted to know that first before Lieutenant Kroysing unpacked his own troubles.
Eberhard Kroysing shrugged his shoulders. His own troubles? He didn’t have any. It was precisely in order to tell the short, sharp truth that he’d come. The infantry needed help. Those poor dogs didn’t have much to laugh about. Their so-called positions in shell holes and rifle pits extended across the valley, usually overlooked from right or left, and were the object of frantic fighting. The French had attacked 30 times, and the Germans had repulsed them 30 times or more, with the sappers always alongside. But they wouldn’t get any further now. August was drawing to a close. They had six to eight weeks left at best. Then a new enemy would attack the men: rain.
They paced up and down, with Kroysing always on the captain’s left, switching round at each turn. His relatively long hair was damp with sweat, and he dried it with his hand, wiping his hand on his jodhpurs before speaking again. Anyone who, like him, had been deployed here since the beginning of January and had seen the clayey ground transformed into a boundless morass knew the score. The fighting troops’ morale was now being corroded by the savage bombardments, appalling losses and the ongoing stalemate in battle. They couldn’t fetch food or move ammunition without men being killed or wounded. Attempts to relieve the troops or advance in larger groups left the men scattered, decimated or with shattered nerves. They didn’t even have a decent shelter to sleep in. The only safe place in the whole area remained Old Uncle Douaumont. Even if the Frogs had a go at it, it was now 3km behind the actual front, and those 3km made all the difference. But what would happen when the rain came? How would they hold out?
Captain Lauber snorted. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘I see.’
Kroysing’s didactic tone and forceful manner sparked resistance in him. But he was a fair-minded man. Without detailed knowledge of every fold of the terrain and advice from the officers in the trenches, the high-ups had nothing on which to base their decisions. For they stayed at the rear: the higher up they were, the further back they stayed. In this respect, the approach of Hannibal and Caesar had been far superior to that taken in these glorious times.
‘What do you suggest, young man? Tell me straight and don’t sugar the pill.’
‘Strengthening the garrison at Douaumont by an entire ASC battalion,’ replied Kroysing indifferently. He was deep in thought, his eyes on the tip of his shoe, which played with a fallen apple full of worms. Douaumont was big and safe, and had plenty of room. Not a single crack in the casemate or the vaulting over the long passageways. Only the top parts had been demolished: the brickwork, supports, surrounds and earthworks. The concrete had held. It had taken at least 2,000 heavy shells, maybe even 3,000, since 21 February. Hats off to French civil engineering.
Captain Lauber puffed fiercely on his pipe. He’d have to look into it. It was his area. He himself was a civil engineer in uniform. He’d been in Douaumont three times but only ever in the yards and in the eastern armoured tower, never below. Had Lieutenant Kroysing ever measured the thickness of the vaulting? Kroysing shook his head. The weather had never been settled enough for that – too much metal in the air. But he reckoned the concrete ceiling was easily 3m thick. It would make a good impression if the captain came to inspect the depot administered by his sappers and took a few measurements while he was at it.
Captain Lauber’s eyes flashed. It was a very good idea to stick another hundred sappers in Douaumont to relieve the fighting troops. With their own staff, company and battalion commanders, naturally. There were lots of gentlemen sitting about behind the lines, leading a nice life, who had no idea what a cushy number God had given them. At the same time, their men had long since turned into fully functioning front-line soldiers. They hauled barbed wire, trench props and ammunition like sappers, and dug trenches and came under fire almost like infantrymen.
Eberhard Kroysing listened with malicious enjoyment. He couldn’t have put it better himself. Did Captain Lauber have a particular person in his sights? Whom did he want rid of? He surely wouldn’t let on. The higher-up gentlemen liked to play their cards close to their chests.
(As it happened, Captain Lauber’s discerning eye had lit on Herr Jansch, politician and braggart, whom he’d already removed from Lille – lit on him and moved on. Wouldn’t work this time, more was the pity. The artillery – his friend Reinhard – needed the men. Shame.)
Kroysing was almost there. ‘I’m thinking of a Bavarian battalion that my men are working with,’ he said. ‘Their headquarters is in Mangiennes, and the company is a little further forward – or perhaps I should say less far back.’ He effortlessly plucked an apple from a fairly high branch, tossed it in the air and caught it again, before adding that some of them were in any case posted as reserve troops within range of the fort in the direction of Pepper ridge and could stay there. Most of them, however, would need to spend all of the coming weeks building dry dugouts with pumps and drains on the higher slopes. ‘We’ll get in touch with the infantry to tell them where the best spots are within eight days. In the meantime, you could put through a request for the Niggl battalion, Captain, and perhaps tempt the staff with the notion of medals and decorations.’
‘That’ll shut them up and make them obey,’ said Captain Lauber. There was already bad blood between the battle-hardened soldiers at the front and the HQ behind the lines, which had expanded as if it were peacetime. What were men to think who’d spent four or five months being hustled back and forwards at the front, been withdrawn battle-weary and redeployed when refreshed, if they had a look round the communications zone and saw how they lived there? ‘The likes of us would know how to lift the troops’ morale. But it’s better not to think about it too much.’