KRIEG (War)

by Ludwig Renn

  Yes, if one knew that it would remain at three shells!

  “What shall we practice?” asked Hanfstengel.

  “At the moment the military salute is the most important.”

  I had the platoon form up in front of the house.

  “Attention!—Assume a better posture!—If we have to exercise, then it will be done at attention! It is fun for every proper person to pull himself together.”

  I moved a ways along the street and tried to decide how to tell them that we had to practice the military salute without it sounding like an insult.

  I said nothing to them; instead I presented a proper salute for them and let them begin. They put some effort into it. I had almost nothing to find fault with and in five minutes we were finished. Should I have them do it again? They had done it well.

  I had them take their rifles in their hands. I had them practice that a couple of times. Then I could let the rifles take over and do it a number of times.

  Schubring came along. “Why are you doing rifle grips?”

  “I wanted to have them do salutes with the rifle, Herr Leutnant. However, they took to the weapons so badly that I thought that should first be practiced properly.”

  “That is completely right. Continue with what you are doing.”

  In this fashion I was able to bring three-quarters of an hour to an end. Then I didn’t know what else to do. I went to Schubring and asked what I should do.

  “Do whatever you can find! In a quarter of an hour we will be stopping anyway.”

  Later I learned that Hanfstengel and Hoehle had spent the entire hour saluting. The people complained, but not about their platoon leaders, instead about the company commander because he had them exercise during a barrage and because they couldn’t suffer him anyway.

  “In the other platoons,” Mehling told me, “they have all sworn to salute the company commander as badly as possible.” He laughed.

  I was uneasy and went outside to see if I could find a spot to myself where I could read.

  The company Feldwebel met me on the street.

  “Good morning!” I said. “The people are yelling for their pay. There is so much here to buy and they don’t have any more money.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” he called excitedly.

  “What do you mean? Don’t you get the money from the paymaster?”

  “No, not one pfennig! There is the devil to pay in the rear area. Three days ago we sergeants sent a messenger to the rear to the paymaster. He has not returned yet.—The people in the rear were never worth much, but now they have become the biggest band of robbers! Especially in Brussels! Naturally they are all a bunch of shirkers!”

  VI

  During the night a shell had killed a man and a woman in the village. In the morning we moved farther to the front.

  At one crossroads a shell landed every couple of minutes, but so accurately at the same spot that we only had to make a curve into a field and then onto the road again.

  Ahead there was unbroken rolling, and now and then, bursts. I was uneasy. I had thought we wouldn’t come under fire again; the armistice would begin beforehand.

  We observed, across a flat rise, the entire area before us. In the distance lay a large village or a city with a thick forest on the right out of which large, black shell bursts rose. A cloud of vapor lay over the village. Sometimes I saw dust rise up.

  Halfway to this place was a small village into which we marched. We were given three large rooms in a house. The entire company was only fifty men strong. The field kitchen drove into the yard and removed the lid from the kettle in order to serve the midday meal.

  Wham! Wham! Wham! No one could see where the rounds landed.

  “A shell has landed in the house!” someone called.

  The kitchen horses reared up—the driver was busy at the kettle in the rear—and ran out of the yard with the kitchen, the driver, and cooks running behind, yelling.

  Plop! A gush of food landed in the street.

  Wham! Wham!

  “My platoon, grab your gear! Follow me!” I ordered.

  They hurried after me outside. Stay in the open when there is firing!

  Wham! Wham! Wham!

  I curved sharply around the house. There were a bunch of new shell holes in the field very close together.

  I went about a hundred meters from the house and stopped. Here we were probably safe. My people were close behind me. Hanfstengel and Hoehle followed with their people.

  “Damn it!” cursed Hoehle.

  The fire let up everywhere after about a half hour. Only in the forest the wicked, black shells continued to burst and to the left of it a vapor cloud stretched across the village.

  We returned to our country house. The field kitchen came back also. The driver led both horses from the front by their halters and calmed them. They did not want to go willingly back into the yard.

  Toward evening a runner arrived. “The platoon leaders are requested to come to the Herr Leutnant.”

  He sat on a wicker chair and did not stand up when we reported.

  “The French have attacked up front. It appears they have captured an officer and two platoons that were located in a swamp. More precise information is not available. Anyway, they only won a small amount of ground.—It is possible that we will have to relieve the people up front tonight. In which case I expect that the spirit of subordination learned in combat will be stronger than the small doubts of the moment!”

  He released us with a nod of his head. We departed mutely.

  So Schubring had no confidence us? That angered me. Have I attempted to carry out your really stupid orders as good as it was possible so that you can insult me?

  VII

  The next day we moved another distance forward. The French were supposed to have gained a lot of ground by the regiment on our left. Therefore we positioned ourselves at an angle toward the left in a field in order to protect the rear of our regiment and the artillery behind it. There we dug small holes. I positioned myself in a shell hole. The sun shone, but it was, after all, November. It turned cool and I became hungry but didn’t have anything else to eat because the field kitchen was unable to bring bread today, because of the disorder in the staging area.

  Two of my people came to me. “Herr Feldwebel, there are potatoes in that abandoned house. Can we go over there and cook some for the platoon?”

  The company commander was underway somewhere; his runners didn’t know where. I discussed it with Lieutenant Hanfstengel and Unteroffizier Hoehle and we decided to cook potatoes together.

  “Take a look there!” said Hanfstengel. “That looks suspicious to me.”

  “I have noticed too for the past hour that people there are going singly to the rear.”

  “I will go over there, Herr Leutnant,” said Hoehle. “I have never trusted that gang over there! The way they carry a machine gun one already knows everything.”

  Hoehle came back. “The people say that tomorrow noon the armistice will begin and today at six the position here will be abandoned. There is no reason to let oneself be shot into a cripple!” I listened to that gang respectfully. I also asked them if they didn’t have any officers. No, they said, the last one was killed the night before last in a house.

  Wham! One landed a little ways ahead of us. To the front there was heavy firing again.

  “Now, just what purpose is there in that,” said Hanfstengel, “to shoot up the positions around here and still further, to attack? Is it fun for them over there to kill a few more while international law still allows it?”

  “They probably want to shoot up their ammunition,” said Hoehle.

  “It is no reason for me to shoot just because it is fun,” said Hanfstengel.

  The people had cooked a mountain of potatoes. One young, very thin fellow filled his whole steel helmet. I remained, by chance, by his hole to see if he could conquer the whole pile and also to see if he would eat them with the peelings. He peeled them, but
wasn’t able to eat them all. I noticed myself that the large amount of potatoes made us all comfortable and sluggish. We sat in our holes. There was continual firing near us but it didn’t bother anyone.

  It began to grow dark. The moon appeared. The artillery fire from the German side grew silent. Probably our artillery had already moved out so that later the roads would be free for the infantry. The French artillery wasn’t firing so heavily now.

  At six o’clock we moved out, spread out across the field. Was I happy? I questioned myself about it. I felt freed from the constant fear of the past years. But other than that I didn’t know what consequences the armistice would have and was uneasy. However, the night was beautiful.

  VIII

  We marched throughout the entire night and as the sky began to gray arrived at a closely built little city with gloomy houses. My platoon located in the rear garden of a villa, in which only lone flowers stood here and there with sparse growth on the ground. We slept until noon.

  In the afternoon we stood around in the street.

  “Herr Feldwebel!” Mehling came laughing. “There were convicts here, several companies of them. They were simply set free by their guards. And the convicts fell upon a supply train at the depot and sold the entire supplies to the local residents. A company of our regiment had to intervene.”

  “That is not funny at all!”

  I turned around. It was the company Feldwebel, who was looking at Mehling with furious eyes.

  “The supplies that they sold were namely ours, from which we were to live for a couple of weeks or however long!”

  “How is it then that the train is still standing here even though we are the last troops before the enemy?” I asked.

  “The mutineers disbanded our field baking columns and sent them home.”

  “What? Where are we going to get bread then?” asked Hoehle.

  “We will have to bake it ourselves. And that is the reason the corps headquarters left the train standing here with flour, sugar, and other supplies.”

  “How are we supposed to bake on the march?”

  “Ask the people who disbanded our baking column!” grumbled the Feldwebel.

  “I would like to have one of those people here!” growled Hoehle. “Earlier these base swine ate themselves full in the rear, and we allowed ourselves to be shot dead, and now they are stabbing us in the back again!”

  The company commander came out of a house. We stood at attention.

  “Have you received any bread?” he asked the Feldwebel.

  “No, Herr Leutnant. We have to bake along the way.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “I think it can be done, Herr Leutnant, if you will place all bakers in the company under my direction—there are five. Of those, two will have to bake throughout the night and the next night the others will be on duty.”

  “The bread will be good!” said Schubring and left.

  I was irritated. Couldn’t he say anything better about a good suggestion?

  “Herr Feldwebel, where did you get flour?” asked Mehling.

  “At the right time I secured some for myself—only sugar will be in short supply for us.”

  During the afternoon all remaining troops moved out of the city. We, only, were to remain until morning as the rear guard.

  The attitude of the company became increasingly sharper against the troops behind the front, especially after the news came that in Brussels the shirkers had come crawling out of the dives where they had concealed themselves with the local residents. And they had ripped the shoulder boards from off the officers’ shoulders. The leader of the gang was supposed to be a Jewish doctor, Doctor Freund—or something similar. In the meantime the population of Brussels had risen up. The troop staffs and administrative authorities were supposed to have barely escaped.

  IX

  The next day at midday we, as the last troops, marched out of the peaceful city and after about an hour met up with the rest of the regiment. The fifth company became the new first platoon of our company under lieutenant Ssymank. The platoons Hanfstengel and Hoehle were molded into one. The officers held long discussions. Then the company commander came and called the company around him.

  “I have to inform you that in Germany revolution has broken out. His majesty, the Kaiser, has retired to Holland, the crown prince also.—The division has ordered that in every company three trusted people are to be chosen. In the morning each platoon will give me the name of one. I give notice that these trusted people are not soldier representatives like in Russia, but are to strengthen the confidence between officers and men.”

  Lieutenant Ssymank stood before his platoon with drawn eyebrows. He raised his hand to his steel helmet, which he still had on from the march.

  “How do you mean, the platoons should each appoint a man? Does my company count as three platoons or as one platoon?”

  “We can’t appoint a trusted person for every private, little interest!”

  “Therefore one,” said Ssymank, cold and distinct.

  “I don’t have anything further to declare,” said Schubring.

  We fell out.

  The trusted people were chosen without any agitation: by me, Mehling, by Hanfstengel, Hoehle, and by Ssymank, corporal Herrmann, a somewhat forty-year-old with a sullen face.

  “That is an organizer!” said Hoehle.

  X

  We marched. Our bakers used up half the flour supply in one night. However, the bread was so doughy that one could only eat a little of it. Schubring fussed at the bakers and the Feldwebel.

  “Herr Leutnant,” said the Feldwebel. “That can happen to the best baker if he has to bake in an oven with which he isn’t familiar.”

  “However, now we don’t have any more flour!”

  “I will attempt to get some more, Herr Leutnant.”

  The next day a two-wheeled ox cart appeared with sacks of flour.

  Schubring took a look at it: “Is that thing loaded with the right things?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Leutnant. The supply officer made out a voucher.”

  After a long march, I had to set up a double guard at a canal bridge during the night. I myself was placed with my platoon in a small house close to the canal as an outpost. The moon shone. I got on the bank and at some distance found the next outpost. I had sent a patrol to the right. They returned after a considerable time.

  “Herr Feldwebel, we went to the next bridge. However, there was nobody there. Therefore we went to the next bridge after that. There is a large road there crossing the canal. And there was no one there either.”

  The next morning I sent another patrol over there. They came back after just twenty minutes:

  “Herr Feldwebel, now there are Belgian guards on the bridge!”

  I immediately wrote a report to the company commander and sent it off and sat there in suspense. However, I received no answer.

  XI

  The next morning we marched off. It had grown cold. The sun, however, was shining. The wide street led through a flat landscape, which looked cheerful. In the afternoon it became unfriendly. The trees appeared gray to me, and the place where we were marching, inhospitable. Machine guns leaned against the gloomy church. Cannons of all kinds stood in the graveyard.

  One of our machine gun companies halted in front and added their machine guns to the rest. These were weapons that were to be handed over after the armistice. They were allowed to stand in the rain and soon were just scrap metal.

  We marched at least two weeks through Flanders, Belgium, and came then into the French-speaking part. We marched continually as a standing rear guard one day’s march ahead of our following enemies. Civilians stood in front of the houses, looked on with hatred, and cursed us.

  Again we were supposed to receive flour and sugar and again the troops ahead of us had sold it to the local population at ridiculously low prices. The mood toward the revolutionaries grew sharper, through the prodding of Hoehle and Corporal Mann, while Herrman
n, the social democrat, attempted to keep the mood mild. Herrmann, with his sullen face, was like a minor official and worked against every chosen action.

  XII

  Close to Luettich we had a rest day. Mehling and a number of others went into Luettich. I went to a nearby fort and looked at the deep trenches and blown up concrete structures.

  In front of a large farmyard some people from our regiment were arguing with a Belgian.

  “Herr Feldwebel!” One of them turned to me. “We got a receipt for straw from the supply officer but this man here refuses to give any out.”

  “Why then?”

  “He says then he won’t have enough left. But he has the whole loft full.”

  “You will have to go to an officer. If I say anything to the owner it won’t faze him.”

  Mehling returned from Luettich late and related that the whole city was decked out with flags. French, British, and Belgians were already there. They were sitting in the cafés. They were playing the Marseillaise and shouting hurrah. Mehling was still full of joy and glitter from it. I, however, was sad. The cursed Fatherland was dear to me.

  XIII

  The next morning we crossed on a long bridge over the Maas, which here is a right majestic river. Then we snaked our way up the heights on the other shore hour after hour.

  At dusk we marched into a valley with a church village there. It was cold. We halted at a bridge, under which a creek roared. The billeting officers came.

  “What’s it like here?”

  “Good quarters!” they called.

  We fell out. Suddenly I noticed a pain in my right foot where my wound had been. It wasn’t the pain of a blister, but a dull, inner pain.

  We went along a steep, grassy slope with fruit trees and came to a solitary half-timbered house. The wood stairs inside appeared polished, and the corridor on the second floor was paneled with dark wood without embellishment. A couple of chests, plank chairs, and a tall clock stood along the walls.