The two officers looked at each other. Of course it was better to keep quiet about such things. They thought about the Commander-in-Chief, the Kaiser’s son and heir to the throne, who had on occasion turned up in tennis whites when fighting units where marching to the front and waved at them with his racket. Such scenes had been photographed and hawked to the newspapers, and a lot of officers found them perplexing.
Captain Lauber sighed. He was a good soldier, prepared to put everything he had on a German victory. Lieutenant Kroysing was taking his leave now, and that was right and proper. He should of course have the car, which would take him as close as it could to his foxhole. Large parts of the area were under long-range fire.
When Captain Niggl received his death sentence, written on an ordinary piece of paper, to the effect that he would be swapping his comfortable billet in Mangiennes for Douaumont, he thought at first he must have read it wrong. An ASC battalion has no adjutants or staff – just a sergeant major and a couple of clerks to handle its business. Furthermore, Herr Niggl was a Royal Bavarian official and so he liked to be the first to see the battalion’s incoming mail. He sat there in his comfortable house jacket, which could hardly be called a uniform, at one with God, his namesake Saint Aloysius and himself, and stared at the half sheet of draft paper, which was signed by Captain Lauber in Damvillers on behalf of the Sappers GOC and sent him, Niggl, to his death. What in buggery is this supposed to mean? he thought, clasping his heart – his beer-fattened, Bavarian heart from Weilheim. It was bloody ridiculous. He was a captain in the Imperial Reserve and a father with two minor children to look after and a vivacious wife, Kreszenzia, née Hornschuh. There must be some mistake. That often happened in war. People were people and they could easily make mistakes. Nonetheless, he thought he’d better go to see Captain Lauber. He knew the Württemberg man. He’d sort it out with him. He folded the order up, put it in his worn, deerskin wallet and put the wallet in his trouser pocket. No need for anyone to see it just yet. It was easier to deflect danger if you hadn’t talked about it.
He drove there in a state of forced calm. Above his fat cheeks, his shrewd eyes wore a rather assured look. He returned as a man who had seen the serious side of life. That Swabian bastard Lauber had gone puce with anger, the miserable noodle muncher. He’d asked him who he thought he was, if he was there to serve the state or to brighten the place up. Captain Niggl wasn’t really handsome enough for that. And did he think he was the only father in the German army? He told him not bring shame on his men, to keep a stiff upper lip and set a good example to his honest ASC men. Soldiers fought quite differently when they saw that their superior officers, who were raking it in each month, at least put themselves in danger too. He would set out the day after next at 3am with his Third Company. The sapper depot at Douaumont would send him guides. From now on he was answerable to the depot. He’d be signed over to the 10th Army Corps and be part of the garrison at Douaumont. He would now have the opportunity to excel and experience life. Besides, the war wasn’t about to end, and there was no life insurance policy for any German officer regardless of whether he was in Mangiennes, Damvillers or Douaumont. The Fourth Company would stay behind and take charge of the railway troops, but the First and Second Companies would follow when the works required. The works: dry dugouts for the infantry, which constituted the backbone of any defence and might earn him a medal.
Yes, there was nothing for it. He, Alois Niggl, from Weilheim in Upper Bavaria, was going to have to cave in and play the hero.
Pale moonlight. The crescent moon was in its second quarter and didn’t rise until close to midnight. In deep silence, three columns of ASC men moved through Spincourt wood, heavily laden with haversacks, entrenching tools, packages and boxes. They knew the roads, having kept them in good repair. The wood, made up of beeches growing on damp soil, was amazingly dense, torn up in some places by shellfire and undamaged in others, depending on the twists and turns of the front and the artillery positions. The men looked pale. Some of their mouths were quivering so much they couldn’t smoke. Many of the country boys said a rosary. Only a couple of urban big mouths talked like they didn’t care. Hill 310 hadn’t yet appeared on the horizon. They were to meet the guides beneath it at the junction with the road to Bezonvaux at 3am. Every man in that marching column wanted to drag out the time until then – to lengthen every minute and insert new units of time. No one was enjoying the change of scene or the damp, fresh air after the heat. They imagined Douaumont to be a kind of fire-spitting mountain and believed they would now disappear inside its bowels. There were also rumours about a gigantic explosion that had finished off over a thousand men, no one knew how. The sappers who’d been there before, with whom they’d now be dossing down, had told them about that. Many of them had pretended to know further details, including the fact that it could happen again any day. A whole battalion wiped out, the sappers said. It didn’t encourage the men to put one foot in front of another.
By 3am their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloaming. They’d been sitting at the roadside for half an hour on boxes and bulging rucksacks each filled with two rolled-up mats, a coat and lace-up boots. They listened dully to the racket wafting over from the other side of Hill 310. On the top, dim white and red lights danced and flickered. Then three slim figures appeared, armed only with steel helmets and gas mask cylinders, carrying walking sticks made from branches. They eyed the ASC men’s enormous packs with sympathy. An NCO reported to Captain Niggl, who’d already sent his horse back. The sappers took position at the heads of the three columns, and the men marched off in single file along well-trodden footpaths. The dark sky was reflected in the shell holes. The ASC men trudged on one step at a time, leaning on their spades. The sappers exuded calm. No need to worry, they said. There’d be nothing doing at this hour. The German infantry had had enough. The Frogs had got sick of it long ago. And the dead who lay decaying outside Souville, by the battlements at Thiaumont and around the ruins at Fleury weren’t about to bite anyone. The path led downhill into a broad depression, where they briefly had a view of the horizon dimly lit by flares. Machine gun fire rattled away like the hammering of sewing machines. The men at the back were having to puff and stumble to keep up and avoid being overtaken by daylight. The night wind carried sweet and terrible smells. Formless patches of blackness intensified the darkness around them. Slanting moonlight filled the shell holes with light and shadow. Then a soaring peak loomed up, obscuring the view. The men climbed its flank, shivering in the first breath of morning air. That’s Hill 388, the sappers said. The long, shell-pitted rampart, which was no longer a rampart, was still called Fort Douaumont. A tall figure with his cap pushed back on his head stood in the shadow of the great arched doorway, whose shattered masonry was patched up with sandbags. His avid eyes scrutinised the approaching column.
What smells did the men’s reluctant noses pick up? Disintegrating masonry. Human excrement. Spent ammunition. Dried blood.
BOOK THREE