KRIEG (War)

by Ludwig Renn

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  Rain. A muddy square in front of the train station and in the distance, a mountain with round towers. We stood in the middle of other troops, supply wagons, trucks. Wounded with bloody bandages walked around, sprayed from head to foot with mud, among them captured Frenchmen with long, blue coats.

  Our Sergeant Lieutenant looked around searchingly for help. “Do none of you know where the regiment is located?”

  Nobody answered. He pushed himself to the supply wagons and asked the drivers. Then he disappeared.

  The rain came down steadily on us. We hung our ground cloths over us and stood. It dripped from our helmets. With the standing our packs became heavier.

  It began to grow dark.

  The Sergeant Lieutenant returned. His glasses were covered with rain drops. He said he had been to see the station commander. However, no one there had known anything about our regiment. Then he had been to the telephone point and they were familiar with our regiment. However, he had not been able to get in contact with them.

  It was gray twilight.

  “Herr Leutnant Kretzschmar?” called someone suddenly, and a man with a ground sheet hanging around him appeared. “I have been sent from the lieutenant colonel to lead the section forward.”

  “Sling arms! Rout step, March!”

  We pushed ourselves through loading docks and people. The houses in the city appeared elegant to me. I had long not been in any city. The last houses glided past. Outside the city there was mud on the street, empty fields right and left, and rain. Our guide had thin, old features and hasty movements.

  “What does it look like up front?”

  “Ah, Herr Leutnant, our regiment! When I think about how we moved here! And now!—in every company there are only a couple of men left, and officers not at all except two or three! And they are dirty and hungry—yes, the field kitchens cannot come forward because the French continuously lay down a barrier of fire in our artillery line. There are corpses and dead horses lying there. After one is through that area then it isn’t so bad up front.—Ah, our regiment! Herr Leutnant, when one knows every second man, and one comes around a corner of the trench and there is a leg sticking out of the wall. Who is that? Alas, it’s Emil, you know, the one whose pant legs Schmidt-Max sewed together one time and we all laughed so hard! Yes, Herr Leutnant, when one knows them all!”

  He sobbed.

  It began raining.

  Then his voice came again: “But the lieutenant colonel—who is our regimental commander—that is a man! I am his orderly and I know where he goes. If we come to a dangerous spot he says: ‘You stay here, Schendler!’ One doesn’t want to allow that; one also has his pride! But there is nothing to be done.” He goes on alone. “Three days ago—or whenever it was—one can’t keep it in his head anymore!—as the French had cut off the third battalion, he led the reserves forward, and then after a couple of hours the whole trench was full of prisoners, seven hundred men and a whole heap of officers! We were as if intoxicated as they all came!—But then on the next day—!”

  A shudder crept over my scalp. I had to yawn and felt drained.

  He talked and sobbed. The mud splashed under our boots. Ahead of us at some distance was a flat hill. From there we should be able to see forward.

  Suddenly, I heard: he spoke of my company. “Lieutenant Waldtke, who was the company commander of the third—he was such a good guy—he defended himself! First he fired. Then he was wounded in the leg. Then he still threw hand grenades. He must not have been totally conscious of what was going on. As they were carrying him back he was cussing and was still trying to throw hand grenades. They almost couldn’t hold him down. If the Herr Leutnant had known him—he was such a gentle person and did not think it right to smoke and to drink. If he just survives!—such a youngster!”

  We arrived on the hill. Ahead of us it flashed here and there and far to the rear on the black horizon. Shell impacts were already clearer. At several spots flares rose into the air and fell back like yellow grapes. I knew that yellow grapes were the signal for a barrage. Therefore at that point there was an attack. Was it there that we were supposed to go?

  We moved out.

  I woke up. Mess gear was rattling.

  I rose up, stretched, and remembered: I was in a tent. Outside it was bright day. I was still wet but felt warm and comfortable. What happened during the night? It appeared to me like a story I had read, so unrealistic, with the crying man.

  I unbuckled my mess gear. I was kneeling as I did it and suddenly realized that I was very cheerful. I had to laugh over my cheerfulness. That was naturally all nonsense, but cute!

  The muddy, trampled meadow pleased me; also, that there was coffee.

  After we had drunk our coffee we assembled. The lieutenant colonel came and measured off our front. He appeared gray and serious. I laughed right in front of him. I couldn’t do otherwise.

  He suddenly became attentive: “Well, I never! You are happy about coming to the Somme?”

  “Yes Sir!” I called.

  “So, so?” he smiled. “But I believe not too happy.” He turned to his supply officer, who was walking behind him: “my whole regiment was made up of such people when we arrived here.—If we are committed a second time it won’t be like that.”

  We were divided up. I went with Ziesche back to my old company. It wasn’t far away and situated at a large farm.

  Seidel came along. I walked toward him.

  He smiled: “Don’t you notice anything?”

  “Well, you are very dirty?—Ah, so?” He had been promoted to vice sergeant.

  “What are you suddenly making such a face about? You’re not thinking that you want to stand at attention in front of me are you?’

  Seidel looked at me from the side: “Did you know that Fabian is leading the company again?” Was he attempting to reconnect with me?—

  Fabian stood in the yard: “Ah, there are some familiar faces!” he called. “By the way, I need runners. You and Ziesche are just right.”

  Fabian had been made a first lieutenant. We lived in his house together with him and his orderly, Eilitz. Eilitz was very big and wide and had a wide, bent nose. He did not appear disposed to talking. Anyway he had a high, thin voice. At first I took him for a dummy like Perle. But then I noticed that he was very clever and hid his intelligence behind a fabulous good heartedness.

  That night I dreamed that I was supposed to be crucified. I considered that I was then dead and was supposed to be afraid of it. But I had no fear of it—instead, only of the pain. And that so, that I woke up bathed in sweat.

  It was already day. I went to the fountain to wash. The sun shone on the yard. My dream occupied my mind, and that I had not been afraid of death. There must be something genuine about it.

  Later I went with Ziesche to do some shooting. We had to cross a flat rise in a meadow. I wanted to tell him about my dream, but—it didn’t serve any purpose. When one is at the front and catches a bullet in the head—it is unimportant. It concerns only one’s self.

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  Several times rumors came around that in the coming night we would have to go forward. But they were never right.

  The weather was cloudy. The others were playing cards. I had some repairs to do to my belongings and because I wasn’t busy I attempted to sew as well as my mother. My underpants were so torn that only the legs were still hanging together. The seat was almost entirely gone and I didn’t have any more buttons. It wasn’t possible to buy any either. I sewed a rope to both sides with which to tie my underpants around my body. My only pair of socks had long been without heels because I didn’t have any wool with which to repair them. And my mother couldn’t send me any because there was none to buy. However, she had sent me a pair of foot wrappings that she had cut from a piece of flannel.

  The next morning beamed beautiful. At the formation Fabian said, “Tonight we are going forward. A part of our regiment has, th
is past night, already occupied the most forward positions. We are to be in readiness in the woods at Bourraine. Our position is temporarily peaceful. However, one can’t depend on that.”

  Fabian dismissed us.

  I had nothing more to do and moved purposeless around the village, leaned over the bridge and watched how the reeds moved in the water and then went back. Meal time came. On this day we received for the first time the good battle rations. Then I lay down to sleep. One didn’t know when the chance would come again.

  About five in the afternoon we assembled in the yard. The sky had changed and it began to rain in fine drops.

  Fabian came in his steel helmet and was very fat from coats, leather bags, bayonet, dagger, pistol, and gas mask.

  We moved out down the road. There were large trucks with canvas over them. I was placed in the front with the driver of one of the vehicles.

  The trucks moved smartly along the wide highway. I could see those moving ahead of us and sometimes those bringing up the rear through the driving rain, which tinkled on the hood ahead of us. It already began to grow dark.

  Suddenly there was a black snake in the road. We braked. The vehicle ahead of us had lost its chain. The NCO beside me leaned out: “Do you all know the way?”

  “No!’

  “Ernst, you go over and lead them after us!”

  In the meantime ahead of us there was only gray darkness. We moved forward at a faster tempo in order to catch up with the others.

  We came to a village and a fork in the road. We moved slower.

  “Which way do you reckon they went? Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll just go.”

  The next vehicle came up behind us. Someone called something from it. The NCO jumped out and walked to the rear.

  He came back: “The connection is broken behind us also. There are just us two vehicles together.—Let’s go!”

  We continued on in the darkness, curved right and left. Trees appeared and ran raggedly past. Shadowy houses slid past. Two harsh, lighted eyes came from a field, grew closer, and then passed by!

  Suddenly we braked. A small officer in a cape stood beside the road with outstretched arm. Two other officers came out of the darkness.

  “Which company?” asked the voice of our battalion commander.

  “The third, Herr Kapitaen!”

  “Thank God! At least they are all here!”

  We disembarked and moved some distance along a muddy path. There were heavy explosions in the distance. In a field we stacked our rifles and hung our ground sheets around us. I wanted to light a cigarette but it dripped so from my helmet that it was all sticky before I could get it lit. Some of the men, despite the mud, had sat down.

  I went forward to the battalion headquarters. “What is the reason for our waiting here?”

  “The battalion we are relieving is supposed to send people to us to lead us forward. But there is nobody here.”

  I splashed through the mud back to the company. I saw a yellow reflection and turned around. Flares rose up and fell as yellow rain right at the place where I figured we had to go. Damn! I thought and splashed on.

  The batteries ahead of us began to bellow. On several points I saw the flashing of the shells. More and more flares rose up and burst. In the company it was deathly still. Someone snored.

  The flares wandered to the right.

  And we have to go forward on that night in which they are attacking again!

  Gradually the shooting let up, only the rain still dripped from my helmet. I sat down by Ziesche on my ground sheet. No one spoke a word. Hours passed. It rained.

  “Company up! Packs on! Assemble in the street!”

  I was stiff from cold and dampness. The ground sheet was also stiff and cold.

  Ahead of us in the street stood three men without packs.

  “Which way do we march?” asked Fabian.

  “We don’t have that information, Herr Leutnant. We have been moving from place to place.”

  “Nice guides!”

  One of our non-commissioned officers said he knew the way to a crossroads, where we would probably have to bear to the left.

  We curved from the road across a soft field in order to avoid the village, which was continually under fire. On the soft ground our orderly march kept coming apart. Again and again from the rear came the call: “Halt!”

  Those people who had recently come from the homeland and were not accustomed to moving forward over fields at night were already plodding in a long, thin line through the thick mud. The night was pitch black and nothing could be recognized either on the ground or on the horizon.

  “Herr Leutnant!” said the non-commissioned officer. “I don’t know anymore where we are. The mud is so even under our feet and everything is so trampled that one can’t tell if it is a path or not. I think it would be best if we cut across and search for the large road.”

  “Good, continue on!” I wondered that Fabian remained so peaceful.

  We curved sharply to the left.

  Suddenly someone came running through the mud: “Herr Oberleutnant Fabian!”

  “Ah, is that you, Schubert?”

  “I came on the end of your company and thought, you don’t know the way. You can follow my company. We are going the same way to the trenches.”

  “It’s nice syrup one must wander through!”

  It had stopped raining.

  The stench of a corpse accompanied us for a ways. Then the ground sank without one being able to recognize what was there. I slipped and traveled down the muddy path on the seat of my pants into a flat ditch. Another corpse must have been lying very close by. Feeling around I came on gravel and then train rails.

  For a ways we continued cross country. Then we curved left onto a road.

  “You stay here, Renn, and see if the company is still together!”

  They slouched, stooped over, past me. One after the other asked: “Are we going to be there soon? Is it not possible to halt?”

  Suddenly the line came to an end. The last one said: “They have long since remained behind.”

  I remained standing and waited.

  Nobody came. Ahead the sound of the marching men was lost. I followed after them.

  It had become a little bit lighter. However, I still came forward with difficulty. The solid surface was covered with slippery mud. I was hindered further by the ground sheet hanging over my shoulder. I reached the end of the column and ran on.

  The Lieutenant said I should go on forward to Lieutenant Schubert and ask him to make a halt.

  I continued running. My things were stiff and heavy from the rain. The company had long become separated.

  Finally I came to the front. Sweat was running across my face. The Lieutenant muttered something, but called a halt. After the company was together again we continued on slowly. The street gradually climbed to a hill on which we curved right onto a sunken road.

  Ahead of us a column appeared to halt. As we came nearer I saw two columns of wagons side by side, which were blocking the entire road. Only on the left there was a narrow space. There we continued forward one behind the other.

  Ahead of us there was heavy firing and not very far.

  A couple of shells traveled closely over us and impacted behind us on the hill. The heavy horses in the column stood peacefully as if it did not concern them. People were unloading fat shells over which we had to climb.

  To the left there was a trench cut into the steep slope into which we turned.

  Lieutenant Schubert stood at a fork in the trench and said: “I believe you have to go to the right now. I must quickly follow my company. It is already beginning to grow light.”

  With that he ran off to the left. We continued on to the right drawing closer and closer to the site of the barrage. There was a red glow ahead of us below the dark clouds. Fabian climbed onto a ledge and looked out.

  “Is that not Bourraine ahead of us?”

  We climbed up, too. Two or three hundred meters ahead
of us something was burning in a village over which shrapnel bursts exploded continually.

  “That isn’t Bourraine,” said the one guide, “but I don’t know what the name of it is.”

  “On the left is a forest. According to the map that’s where the Bourraine forest is supposed to be.”

  “No, that isn’t it.”

  “Continue on!” said Fabian.

  To the left at a dugout a guard walked back and forth.

  “What is the name of the village ahead of us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who is located here in the dugout?”

  “Our battalion headquarters.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean: our battalion headquarters—Renn, go down and ask!”

  I stumbled down the narrow stairs. By a dim light sat a thin officer in a dirty coat. He told me that it really was Bourraine ahead of us and that we had just come too far to the right into the next regiment’s area.

  I ran back up.

  “Out of the trench!” ordered Fabian.

  We crawled out next to the guard. In my haste my ground sheet got under my legs and I slid back down.

  There were shell holes as deep as a man in the ground around whose edges we turned right and left. There was no blade of grass left. The holes ended and then came a level meadow. We went at some distance along the forest and then turned sharply at its lower end. There stood an ambulance wagon. Two dead horses lay before it.

  A man came out of the forest. “I am supposed to turn over the dugouts to the lieutenant. Our company moved out several hours ago in order to get to the rear before daylight.”

  Sch-plop! A shell passed close over us and hit the ground without going off.

  Sch-plop! A second one.

  “Forward!” called Fabian. “Get into the trench here!”

  “To the left here,” said the man, “are dugouts for the medics and the company commander. The rest of the company is in the forest.”

  Somewhere a shell detonated.

  We walked in a trench where chunks of mud and limbs had fallen.

  “You can go,” Fabian said coolly to the guides. The dugouts were assigned as we passed by. The trench ended in the middle of the forest at a black opening. Steps led below.