KRIEG (War)

by Ludwig Renn

  But I wanted to overcome it, to make myself firm! Still closer and more terrible! No!—

  Both doctors whispered together.

  “That’s not it, dear colleague. I think it is tetanus. Did you hear how he talked about the attack? That is more or less a positive ecstasy that corresponds to the negative. Anyway the pulse is fairly weak. I’ll take a look and see if he has come to himself again.”

  He came over to me. “I’ll give you a little bit of cognac.” He poured some in my mouth. It went through me like fire.

  “So, how do you feel now?”

  “It’s rather hard for me to speak, doctor, because my lips are so thick. Also the blisters have gotten larger. Other than that I feel pretty good.”

  “The firing is bad out there,” he said. I noticed that he was observing me. He appeared not to know what else he could ask me and so he departed.

  It was odd that something about me appeared worth observing.

  I was happy.

  Hornung moaned. Someone was carried down, first the ripped trousers. The doctors were busy. Some time passed.

  Again I became aware. There was only breathing in the dugout. The senior physician came over. “How’s it going?”

  “Very good, doctor.”

  “It’s already late. We have to see that you get to the rear. I will hand you over to the medical NCO just in case you have another collapse.”

  I didn’t know what collapse meant but said, however, “It won’t happen again!”

  “And you,” he turned to Hornung, “have to leave too.”

  “I can’t, doctor!”

  “That’s nonsense! In the air you will feel much better.”

  I stood up. Hornung just moved on his stool.

  “Now, stand up!”

  “I can’t!” he breathed.

  “Take him by the arm!”

  I gripped him hesitantly by the upper arm. He suddenly stood up easily. What had happened? On the dugout steps I had to release him. He climbed out ahead of me. Suddenly he staggered to the rear. If he were to fall on me I was helpless with the bound up arm! I grabbed him quickly by the arm and shoved him outside.

  Outside the moon was shining on the whitened branches and on the dead.

  “Now, quickly!” said the medical NCO. “They shoot here with shrapnel bursts. There across the meadow!”

  We began to run. Hornung reeled along on my right and on the left I was bound and helpless. I tried to get in step with him but was unsuccessful. We staggered up the slope and between the crosses and through the unburied dead in the cemetery.

  Zing! A piece of shrapnel whizzed close on the left.

  We stopped at a corpse lying across the path.

  Zing! Another one.

  “What’s wrong, then?” The medical NCO turned around and wanted to take Hornung by the right arm and help him over the corpse.

  “Leave me alone!” he said irritably.

  We came to a trench. Bound up the way I was I couldn’t jump and Hornung became slack at my side.

  The medic walked along the trench. “This way!” he called.

  The trench here was closed in.

  “Now keep moving! This is the worst place!”

  We came to the sunken road.

  “You have to wait here in one of these bunkers until the ambulance wagon comes.—I wish you a speedy recovery!”

  Before us in the steep slope was an entrance with steps; below, a light. As we climbed down Hornung moaned.

  There were three engineers working on a corridor. There was a pile of mine timbers on which Hornung sat down without a word.

  “Can we stay here until the ambulance wagon comes?” I asked.

  “It will be cold for you,” said one of them without hesitating with his work.

  Hornung started his movements again and appeared not to get enough air.

  The dampness of the wood penetrated our pants. A feeling of sickness came over me, completely occupying my attention. After a while it began to recede. I touched the large blisters on the bare left side of my chest.

  One shiver after another came over me and went down to the roots of my hair.

  In the gallery they continued working.

  “Just a shade higher! The plug isn’t in place.—Now it is!”

  Suddenly I noticed something about Hornung. His eyes lay in shadow. His face appeared noticeably brown and strange. He moved his lips and the wrinkles around his mouth as if he was speaking on a stage—he was an actor. It suddenly came to me how unnaturally he had spoken in the aid station, as if on a stage.

  “Carry the sacks out! Then we’ll take a break.” They dragged the sacks full of dug-up mud over to the steps and leaned them against the wall. Then they sat down on a wooden beam and began to slice bread.

  “I don’t believe that any ambulance wagon will come today. The shelling is so terrible on the roads!”

  We can’t stay here, I thought, and began to move around. I felt chilled and had to yawn. “Sergeant!” I said. “Would it not be better if we tried to get to the rear ourselves?”

  “No, that’s not possible,” said the engineer. “Do you know the way? And it is quite cold out there.”

  “That’s still better than sitting down here half naked.”

  They examined my bare left side.

  “Paul!” said one of them. “Don’t you have to go to the rear now? You could take them with you.”

  Hornung sat there motionless, breathing heavily. I took him by the arm. He stood up heavily.

  “Thanks for the care,” I said.

  “No thanks are necessary,” mumbled someone.

  It was dark and quiet on the muddy street. As we came up on the hill I looked one more time toward the front. Far to the right a white tracer rose into the air. A single rifle shot grew silent in the distance.

  The engineer led us along a street other than the one we marched forward on a week ago; actually not a street, but an old field with wet stumps. We came to collapsed houses. From a cellar came dim light. I was freezing on the naked parts of my skin beside the bandage.

  “There are a lot of batteries around the next village,” said the engineer. “There is a lot of firing there.”

  To the left, there was a black trench, along which we walked for some ten steps. From behind us came a soft swishing sound directly toward us and grew sharper.

  “Take cover!” yelled the engineer and lay in darkness on the ground.

  We both stood uncertainly.

  It came downSwish!

  Ka-bamm! A brown tree went flying up five steps ahead of us. Hornung bowed his upper body.

  Plop-plop-plop! Mud balls came falling down. I got wet mud in my open collar.

  The engineer stood up: “That was damned close!”

  A shot whined over us.

  “We have to get in the trench,” said the engineer. We followed him. The mud slid deeper down my neck and was cold on my back.

  The engineer slid into the trench and reached up his hand for Hornung. He bent over and came down clumsily. I was afraid with only the one good arm and lay on my right side. The engineer gripped me carefully on the hips.

  In the trench we walked quickly around the muddy corners. Above us we saw ruined walls. In a trench expansion a howitzer sat massively with round munitions containers around it.

  Behind the village the trench ended in a flat meadow. Hornung walked now without any support. I felt fresh to go on.

  We came on to a street and then through a lightly damaged village.

  It began to grow light.

  “There is the field hospital,” said the engineer and pointed to a large farm yard.

  As we entered, a doctor came out of a low building to the right. “I was just finished with bandaging.—Well, your bandage is good. Are you in any pain?”

  “No, Herr Doktor.”

  “Well, come along with me!” he said, lively. He took us into a low building. To the right and left lay wounded, crammed closely one after the ot
her. I was placed between two, of which the one on the left had pulled the cover over his head. The one on the right looked at me from a pale face. I lowered myself with my right arm and carefully lay on my back.

  An orderly brought a blanket and laid it over me.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The daylight coming through the window aroused me. The wool blanket was irritating on the naked areas. I closed my eyes. However, I was very awake. The happenings of the night came to me in pictures, but unconnected and naked: the street, which we came to at the end, how they fell during the attack. Eilitz lay in the woods, for whose death I was responsible. And the hall here and the ceiling! The man on my right breathed unevenly. That tormented me. I gazed over at him. He moved one knee under the blanket. I closed my eyes again and thought: I must be tired!

  I went to sleep.

  I was startled. Someone had asked me whether I could stand up. An orderly stood at my feet and looked down at me.

  “Yes,” I said and propped myself up.

  He pointed to the table at the right rear. There was breakfast there. I arose and went over, strangely lightheaded.

  There were a number of people sitting at the table, dirty and pale. I sat down on a stool. A couple of them were talking. It tormented me to listen to them.

  Mugs with thin, hot coffee were set before us. Also included was a single slice of bread. I was hungry, but it didn’t appeal to me at the table. I soon stood up. There was a mirror hanging on the wall. Shyly I cast a look into it and received a shock. I was like a white field with a couple of dark eyes in it.

  Toward evening I was loaded into a field ambulance. I had to lie down on a stretcher and a thin blanket was laid over me. They shoved me at the top into the dark vehicle space. There were already two others lying below me. Then another stretcher came sliding in on my right with someone lying on it. The door at the back was closed and locked. Pale light filtered in through a rip.

  The engine was started. It rattled. They climbed in up front. Suddenly it began to move. Hesitantly, the vehicle moved off. On the taut fabric of the stretcher I was tossed lightly into the air and came down hard on the stretcher bars directly on the wound. Then it lifted me again into the air. The street must be very badly worn. If at least the vehicle didn’t have such soft springs! It rocked to and fro. With my free hand I attempted to brace myself against the top. In the attempt I made myself stiff and it was even more painful. I couldn’t lie on my side because I would only be able to lie on my good side and then there would have been no hand free to hang on with. I allowed myself to be seesawed and sent flying and closed my eyes. Thereby I again had the feeling that I could fall off the stretcher. It was cold under the thin blanket. My blisters felt like goose flesh. We went around corners and then straight again. Vehicles rumbled. Infantry columns slouched by. Uninterrupted blows came: cobblestones.

  We halted. Voices. Someone at the rear rattled the lock and opened the door. Daylight. A litter was pulled under me. A fit of shivering came over me.

  They pulled me out. I saw a house. The sky, although it was overcast, dazzled me. They carried me, feet first, up a set of steps. That excited me a little. Then we entered a large, bright room with beds.

  A nurse smiled at me from above. “Can you stand up by yourself?”

  I drew the cover back and raised myself up. She led me to a white bed. I unbuttoned my blouse, as far as it had been buttoned. Then I pulled the muddy boots from off my feet. They were very dirty. I felt ashamed and covered myself quickly.

  “Was it bad up front?”

  “No—or maybe it was.”

  She smiled and went to those who were just being carried in.

  A cold shudder went through me. The fear returned. There was a brittle, dull, drawing feeling creeping over me. My blisters had become even larger.

  After a while the feeling lessened. In the next bed, someone laid moaning and moving around. His face was round and red. The nurse went to him: “Afterwards we’ll wash your back again with ether. Right now here is something to eat—or do you not have an appetite?”

  She felt the man’s forehead. Then she looked at me. “Are you not in any pain?”

  “No, but I’m hungry!” Suddenly I became very cheerful.

  The next day I was again loaded into a car and driven to the train station. They put me on a stretcher in a low railroad car with a lot of small windows.

  We departed. Every clack of the wheels thrust me in the wound. As a result the fear came again, and the drawing feeling.

  How many days we traveled, I don’t know. Sometimes I stood up if only not to be pressed on the wound. I asked if they would let me sit for one night. However, the nurse wouldn’t allow it and it wouldn’t have been possible anyway. I had a fever and had to be excused again and again. The nurse appeared to become worried about me. That feeling would come again and again and it was terrible and brittle. I itched on my body. I must have had lice. However, there was nothing I could do about it. I thought desperately: is this always going to be so, that this feeling keeps coming back? However, when it was over, then I was cheerful.

  It was night. Our train halted. I wasn’t aware anymore.

  Orderlies came in and picked up my litter. They carried me out carefully, but I was afraid. Now we went across the tracks. If they should stumble I couldn’t stand it anymore! We came to a large building like a storehouse. Then we continued on. What were they going to do with me? We went up a number of steps. I saw white halls.

  “In here!” said an old woman’s voice. She stood in the door with hands folded on her stomach and looked at me from white, supported head coverings.

  They carried me into a room with two rows of beds. The nun helped me gently to stand up. I trembled over my whole body. My teeth chattered against each other.

  “I have lice,” I said despairingly.

  “We’ll soon be rid of them.” She smiled. “They don’t like it where it’s clean.”

  She laid me in the bed and covered me up. I shivered and could do nothing to stop it.

  The nun came with a basin, took my feet out of the bed and began to wash them with warm water.

  “Have you got a fever?” she asked with a somewhat watery voice that was, however, very good.

  “Yes, I believe so,” I stuttered.

  “We’ll introduce you to the doctor right away. We have a very good doctor here. He is untiring from morning till in the night.”

  She stuck my feet back under the cover.

  An orderly came with a flat cart with rubber wheels. I had to lay myself down on it. He led me out into a narrow space. Suddenly it hummed and we traveled downward.

  He shoved me into a room with basins and instruments. There he sat me on a white, covered table and pulled my shirt off. He drew the covering around my hips so that I didn’t sit there completely naked. Then he removed the bandage from my chest and shoulder. I shivered and my teeth chattered.

  “That has become infected!”

  Someone walked impatiently back and forth behind me, stopped, and appeared to observe me. It couldn’t be a doctor. This person was afraid. He again walked back and forth, stood still and then again took a couple of steps, terribly unsettled. My teeth rattled with desperation. If he just wouldn’t keep observing me!

  The orderly had removed the bandage and threw it in a basin. Almost the whole thing was soaked through with brown. Was all of that puss?

  The door was suddenly jerked open.

  “Doctor Sand!”

  “Lindkamp,” said a soft, deep voice.

  “You are not wounded, Captain?”

  “No, I am sick.”

  “But there is no transfer from the field hospital.”

  “I wasn’t transferred.”

  “Then Captain, we are not allowed to accept you.”

  I was terribly cold on my chest and back.

  “Then what should I do?” mumbled the captain.

  “We
can keep you here, but with the understanding that we don’t otherwise need your bed.—We also have to send a report.”

  “That is your duty,” mumbled the captain.

  There were hurried steps coming toward me. It was a man in a white coat, still young.

  “What’s wrong with you?—Nurse, where are the instruments?”

  Instruments rattled behind me. I started.

  “Did that hurt?”

  “No, doctor,” I stuttered.

  Some people came in through the door.

  The wound was patted with something cold. I tried to pull myself together and stopped trembling. Then my teeth began chattering again. I couldn’t stand it any longer! I began crying convulsively. I began shaking from the cold.

  “Now bandage him quickly and then into bed!” said the doctor and placed something wide and soft on the wound.

  The orderly wrapped my chest with a wide bandage and whispered: “Don’t be afraid!”

  He led me through the entrance. A small officer watched me sympathetically. I couldn’t see what rank he carried on his shoulder boards. However, I suspected that it was the captain.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “No, Herr Kapitaen.—I’m freezing—just—so.” I got it out only haltingly because I was shaking so from the cold.

  He looked away and suddenly bowed, embarrassed. “Lindkamp.”

  Oh God! I thought, he thinks I am an officer. I can’t introduce myself so to him.

  “Herr Hauptman, I am only a corporal.”

  He looked at me sadly and went along next to my cart.

  “What is your name?” he mumbled.

  “Renn, sir.”

  “If there is anything you need I am in room 209.” He turned away and remained standing. I wanted to say something to him. However, I was only a corporal and shook with cold and couldn’t find anything to say.

  They laid me in bed. The nun covered me up. “It will be better in the morning,” she smiled. “That only comes from the long train trip.”

  That made me much more settled. It was only on the outside that I froze and trembled. I lay clean in a white bed. Something inside me was very happy.

  ——————————

  I was awakened by a song from next door. There must have been a chapel there and the nuns were singing. It was daylight and bright in the room and very quiet. In all the beds they were listening.