Later when they were at their evening meal – tea with rum and toast with rashers of bacon – and Bertin was holding his sandwich skewered on a twig over the fire, a clamour sounded above the roof. Outside it began to boom, sing, roar, gurgle and rattle, fading away then returning again and again. The two men from Baden didn’t even look up. It was just the 15cm guns’ evening blessing on its way to Thiaumont and beyond. It was a repulsive, unnatural sound, whose deeply evil nature was instantly apparent. Private Bertin sat there deeply affected by it. What he heard wasn’t the drone of a man-made implement whose purpose and use were determined by men. To him, it was as if an ancient force, a bit like an avalanche, roared out there, for which the laws of nature, not man, were responsible. The war, an operation instituted by men, still felt to him like a storm decreed by fate, an unleashing of powerful elements, unaccountable and beyond criticism.
CHAPTER TWO
A voice from the grave
SUDDENLY, THE FOLLOWING day at noon, Erich Süßmann was there, looking around with his piercing eyes and promising the men from Baden to send the newcomer back in time. Their route took them past the field howitzers. Great. They strode off like a couple of ramblers, crossed the light railway tracks and the stream on some planks, climbed up the slope through branches and bushes dappled with light and shade, turned into a gorge on the right, which was currently a mass of pulverised woodland, and followed a sort of cattle path halfway down the slope that led to the railway tracks in the valley. Sergeant Süßmann knew all these woods by name: they were in Moyemont, Vauche wood was further back, Hassoule with its ravines further on. Each one had literally cost streams of blood, German and French. They turned on to a narrow path, and Bertin grabbed Süßmann’s shoulder. ‘Look! A Frenchman!’ A few feet from them was a blue-grey figure with his back to them. His steel helmet hung round the nape of his neck and he was pressed against a bush as though about to walk on.
Süßmann gave a short laugh. ‘God, yes, the Frog. He signposts the way to the field howitzers. No need to be scared of him. He’s deader than dead.’
‘And no one has buried him?’ asked Bertin in disgust.
‘Where have you been living, dear chap? In the Bible probably and with Antigone. They needed a signpost here and took what came their way.’ Bertin looked away as they walked past the murdered man, who was nailed to the truncated tree with a shell splinter like a sword. ‘Heavy mortar,’ said Süßmann.
Bertin felt ashamed in the presence of the dead man. He had an irrepressible urge to scatter earth on his helmet and shoulders, to atone for his death, to give him back to Mother Earth. His gaze sought out the ravaged face and desiccated hands. Good God, he thought, he might have been a young father. He might have carried his little son on those shoulders the last time he was home on leave. He trotted along silently beside Süßmann. Unexpectedly, they came upon piles of ammunition covered by greenish tarpaulins. To the left, the railway reappeared beneath their path. Shortly thereafter, the heavy barrel of a gun, whose mounting was wedged into the earth, reared up among the ruined trees. Only then did Bertin notice the overturned tree trunks bound together with wire cables, sandbagged and covered with canvas camouflage. A heap of useless iron in the form of spent cartridges rusted nearby. Someone called to them. Süßmann spoke to the guard, who was strolling around without a rifle, and learnt there was no post that day. Next day perhaps. The hard Upper Silesian dialect was unrecognisable on the lean soldier’s stubbly lips.
At last the hillside to the fort towered above them like a mountain that had had part of it blown off. The earth: it was beyond Bertin’s worst dreams. It bared its scabs and pus like a piece of leprous skin under the microscope. It was scorched and crumbling, and the remains of roots wormed through it like veins. A bundle of spoiled hand grenades lay in a shell hole. Of course, thought Bertin, the place had once been full of water. Scraps of cloth fluttered on a jumble of barbed wire – a sleeve with buttons, cartridge cases, the remains of a machine gun belt – and there were human excrement and tin boxes everywhere. But no bodies. In his relief he mentioned this to Süßmann, who waved a dismissive hand.
‘There were plenty of dead bodies here at the beginning of April. Naturally, we couldn’t let them stink away to their heart’s content. We buried them in the big shell holes back there.’
‘How long have you been here?’ asked Bertin in astonishment.
‘Forever,’ laughed Süßmann. ‘First we captured it, then came the rumpus inside the bowels of the place, then I was away for a few weeks and then I came back.’
‘What do you mean by the “rumpus”?’
‘The explosion,’ answered Süßmann. ‘I tell you, it’s a strange world. I was practically dead, and that wasn’t half as bad as being tormented by the question: why? Who are we doing all this for?’ Bertin stopped to catch his breath. All the answers that drifted into his head seemed impossible. In this place, every word smacked of rank pathos. ‘Yes, my young friend,’ joked his little guide, ‘even you don’t know what to say to that. It always feels to me as if people like you have fallen out of a balloon by chance and need some information about the planet they find themselves stumbling across.’
‘Gratefully received,’ said Bertin, not offended in the least. ‘If the Frogs give us time—’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Süßmann sniffed. ‘They’re as deep in hot water as we are. They won’t lift a finger.’
The approach turned into a mountain climb, and Bertin’s stick came in handy. Süßmann laughed as they stepped over the drawbridge and passed the barbed wire defences – the spikes of iron gratings bent by direct hits stared up from the moat – and Bertin sniffed the musty smell of rubble and other strange substances. ‘That’s the Douaumont smell. So we don’t forget the place.’
The sentry hadn’t challenged them. ‘Salute when you see an officer here, oh stranger,’ Süßmann instructed him. ‘You’re never off duty.’
‘I actually can’t see a thing,’ Bertin answered, his voice echoing in the dark tunnel. Vaults opened off to the right and left, and there were small electric lamps in the ceiling.
‘We’re in the north-west wing,’ said Süßmann. ‘At the end of March, the Frogs were practically dancing on our heads, but they didn’t pull it off.’ ASC men ran past them with bundles of tools on their shoulders. A couple of sappers covered in dirt nodded to Süßmann. ‘They’ll be able to sleep today,’ he said, ‘but otherwise we’re trained to be night owls. Funny how you get used to things. It seems there are no limits to what human nature can take.’
‘And what do you do?’ Bertin asked.
‘You know what I do: build field railways. That’s our way of recovering. And today I’ve been for a stroll. Later, I’ll take you back, and tomorrow morning I’ll visit your colleagues in Fosses wood.’
‘Give them my best wishes,’ Bertin laughed.
The sapper depot occupied half a wing of the mighty pentagon. Nobody smoked; it wasn’t just rolls of barbed wire, trench props and iron spikes that were stored here. Bertin glanced in passing at the two-handled wicker baskets shaped like giant arrow quivers. The tops of heavy mortar mines bored downwards into them. Crates of tracer ammunition reminded him of the crates of powder at his own artillery depot. They were brand new. An unshaven NCO was handing flares out to a couple of infantrymen. He carefully counted out the cartridges on a plank of wood laid across two kegs. Behind him was an open door to a white-washed cellar with zinc containers for liquid.
‘Oil for the flame throwers,’ said Süßmann.