‘Listen, my friend,’ he said, speaking to the ceiling, ‘around midday when the captain has caught up on his sleep, wander over to his orderly room and nonchalantly ask where the two companies are. And then as an afterthought ask if you could please see the post book. The Third Company must have kept some kind of record when it entrusted my brother’s belongings to the choppy seas of the army postal service. Because, dear Süßmann, the parcel is lost. A certain percentage of packages and letters must get lost just by the laws of probability. And that Christoph’s few things were among them – coincidence naturally. We Kroysings are an unlucky lot.’ Süßmann would have preferred to go straight away, but Kroysing didn’t want to be alone. ‘If our friend Bertin is a hardened soldier then he’ll hoof it over here this morning and show his rather crooked nose,’ yawned Kroysing. ‘Do you think he’ll dare come?’
Süßmann said that if he stayed where he was it would only be out of shyness. In order to propel him over, he’d telephoned that morning – but lo and behold the bird had already flown. He was on night duty and was free during the day, and according to Strumpf from the Landsturm he’d gone to see a friend from school whom he’d discovered among the field howitzers. Then he planned to continue to Douaumont. ‘Would’ve been a miracle if there wasn’t someone he knew among all those Upper Silesians, poor lad,’ concluded Süßmann.
‘Why are you making fun of him?’ asked Kroysing.
‘Well, apart from the fact that everything strikes me as funny, I’ve never known anyone to have so many doubts about everything and anything.
Kroysing looked up. ‘Do you think he’s a coward? I don’t fancy that.’
Süßmann shook his long head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he retorted. ‘Did I say cowardly? I said he has doubts. The lad is more of a naïve daredevil, motivated by a mad desire for novelty – the devil only knows what drives him. One thing’s for sure, though, he’s scared of his superiors. Of the military, you know. Shells are no problem, but show him an orderly room or an epaulette and the poor dog shits his pants,’ he added thoughtfully.
Kroysing rolled on to his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. ‘You don’t understand a thing about it. It’s got to be like that. The common man, according to Frederick the Great’s theory, must fear his superiors much more than the enemy, otherwise, he’d never attack. Furthermore, I imagine Bertin’s tendency to panic would disappear with a good military education. What are men like him doing in the ASC? Do me a favour, Süßmann, watch him for me. If he looks like he could do something better, I’ll be happy to help him. He’s intelligent and educated, he’s been out here long enough and he’s a decent lad. It just depends whether he has guts – cold-blooded guts. You know what I mean. If he does we’ll put him on the usual road to a stripe and later a commission – like you.’
Süßmann banged on the table with a red pencil he’d been using to doodle on an army postcard. ‘Then he’d first of all have to request a transfer from his unit.
‘That he would.’
‘He never will,’ asserted Süßmann. ‘His scruples will get in the way. We had a chat on the way back last time. He’s had his fingers burnt. He volunteered for the west, but was assigned to a convoy for the east. That blunder landed him in Jansch’s battalion. Regret about that gnaws away at his soul. Never volunteer: that’s his motto now. And not a bad one, I’m sure you’ll admit.’
Kroysing shook his fist. ‘Scoundrel! Up with volunteers! They’re in the best Prussian tradition and a matter of honour for sappers. Didn’t you ever learn about Sapper Klinke and the Dybbøl trenches at school? “My name’s Klinke, and I open the gate,” wrote your countryman Fontane, and he should know.’
They both laughed, as Süßmann added: ‘Poets can do anything.’
‘Nothing against poets,’ warned Kroysing. ‘Here’s ours.’
Sure enough, there was a shy knock and Bertin entered, rather wet and with filthy boots. They commended him on his timely arrival. Kroysing offered the visitor a glass of brandy so he wouldn’t catch cold, got up to greet him and gave him something to smoke: Dutch pipe tobacco. Kroysing wandered across the narrow room in his padded waistcoat of slightly worn black silk to wash his face, and as he was drying it, he told Bertin about his delicate conversation with Captain Niggl. Bertin cleaned his rain-splattered glasses. In the pipe smoke, his myopic eyes could barely pick out Kroysing’s face and the flapping towel. He told them he hadn’t been able to sleep after the letter opening. Its contents had stayed inside him, spoken in the voice of the – he swallowed – dead man, which, curiously, he remembered extremely well. What kind of a man was Niggl that he could simply disregard an exceptional young lad such as Christoph?
Kroysing pulled on his tunic and slid past the visitors and furnishings into his seat by the table at the window. ‘A very ordinary man,’ he said in his deep voice. ‘One of x millions, a workaday scoundrel, so to speak.’
‘And what do you plan to do with him?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ replied Kroysing. ‘First, I’ll put him under pressure. The surroundings, this atmospheric mole heap of a fort and the Frogs will help me there. Next step: I get him to sign a paper confessing that he kept my brother at Chambrettes-Ferme until he was killed – in order to forestall the court martial investigation.’
‘He’ll never sign,’ said Süßmann.
‘Oh yes, he will,’ replied Kroysing, looking up. ‘I’m curious myself as to how it will happen, but it will happen. I feel like an adolescent boy again, full of drive and vengeance. That’s the only time you can really hate properly and persecute people for months. Perhaps the war has uncovered the ancient hunter in us, who drinks evening tea from his enemy’s skull. After two years of it, it’s no wonder.’
‘Do you call that a good thing?’ asked Bertin, shocked.
‘I call anything good that extends my life and finishes the enemy off,’ said Kroysing brusquely, carefully marking the locations of the new mine throwers with a green pencil; he’d already used blue for the German positions, red for the French and brown for the area’s contours. ‘This isn’t a girl’s school,’ he continued. ‘The lie about the spirit of the front and the comradeship of war may be fine, and it may be necessary to keep the show on the road for those behind the lines and our enemy over there. Supreme self-sacrifice, you know. Very inspiring for war correspondents, politicians and readers. In reality we’re all fighting to have as much as possible in our own domain. It’s a battle of all against all. That’s the right formula.’
‘I’ve often felt that,’ said little Sergeant Süßmann drily.
‘Exactly.’ Kroysing blinked at him. ‘We all have, if not as keenly as you. And anyone who hasn’t felt it, hasn’t been to war.’
‘Do you really believe,’ said Bertin with a secret sense of superiority and the trace of a smile, ‘that the drive for honours, for a career—’
‘Rubbish,’ said Kroysing. ‘Our own domain, I said, and our own domain is what I meant. Domain can mean different things to different people – every man has his own thumbprint. Some collect medals and give their hearts to metalsmiths. Others want to carve out a career and swoon with delight when they get ahead. But the great mass of people just want dosh. They loot French houses or share out dead men’s effects. Our friend Niggl just wanted a quiet life.’
‘And what does the lieutenant want deep down inside?’ asked Süßmann, pulling a funny monkey face.
‘Not telling, you cheeky monkey,’ laughed Kroysing. ‘You may assume that I want to be feared among my clansmen.’ And he added more seriously: ‘Never before has anyone spat in my soup the way that man has.’