Most urgent of all was that he keep his head. That he’d lost his nerve so suddenly was simply down to this dung heap, Douaumont. He’d allowed himself to be too impressed by the word. It looked almost exactly the same here as in the cellars of Ettal Abbey or Starnberg Castle. If he were sitting there he wouldn’t feel like giving up just because a man with whom he had to work was the brother of another man with whom he’d worked before. He sat there eyeing the white-washed wall in front of him. When he examined the whole discussion, it really hadn’t been so suspicious after all. He alone had ascribed a vengeful role to his visitor; he alone, persuaded by the fact that this stupid pile of bricks wasn’t called Ettal Abbey or Starnberg Castle but Douaumont, had given the situation sinister connotations. If you looked at it soberly, nothing could be proved. The question about the files was as natural as the one about the effects. The fact that a Lieutenant Kroysing was in charge of the sapper depot was as harmless as his brother being an NCO in the ASC. The lieutenant hadn’t really looked after his younger brother. And now he was meant to have had his brother’s company and battalion commander transferred in order to exact revenge. Rubbish! Preposterous nonsense! Young Kroysing was dead and couldn’t say anything. There were always ASC companies pottering around in Douaumont. If this wasn’t a coincidence, then there was no such thing as coincidences, and the Holy Father was right to believe in a jealous God sitting above the world observing wrong-doers and protecting the innocent. And it wasn’t hard to deal with the Lord God. You went to confession and did what the priest told you. Then you put one over on the devil – and his envoy, this lanky bloody Prussian, who wasn’t even a real Prussian but a Nuremberg imitation. Nothing’s up, Niggl. Write your letter home and don’t let on to the wife and kids.
Captain Niggl’s day passed tolerably well. The midday bombardment startled him. He was to go out with the men that night and he’d requested and studied maps and was reassured by the several kilometres that lay between him and the French. About 5pm, his company commander, Acting Lieutenant Simmerding, pushed into his room looking horrified. He closed the door and stuttered out a question: did the captain know what the fort’s sapper commander was called? In his cocksure way, Niggl tried to calm him down. Of course he knew; he’d known for ages. An affable chap, Lieutenant Kroysing. They’d be able to work well with him. Then why, hissed Simmerding, hadn’t he told Feicht and him anything about it? They were in hot water now. And he handed Niggl an official telegram, white and blue, as they always were when the telephonists transcribed a message over the wire: ‘Christoph’s effects not received, Kroysing,’ it read.
Niggl looked at the piece of paper for a long time, then asked flatly where Simmerding had got it from. He said the little Yid Süßmann had brought it over for his attention, requesting that it be returned. Niggl nodded several times. His pathetic attempts at self-deception were useless. You didn’t mess with a man who smiled politely and fired off telegrams like electric shocks.
‘You were right, old pal,’ he said amiably, ‘and I’ve been an ass. Herr Kroysing is a dangerous man. We’ll have to get a grip on ourselves and use our nous. To begin with we’ll blame it all on the army postal service.’ But his hand was shaking as he relit his cigar, and when Simmerding huffed, ‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ he didn’t know what to say.
Three days later, Captain Niggl was to be seen running down the echoing corridors, head bent. In that short time, the company had recorded two more dead and 31 wounded. French shells had twice exploded in the column, and although that word designated loose groups of men rather than a marching line, the ASC men and their officers nonetheless had the impression that they were helplessly exposed and must be prepared for anything when outside the stone pile. Captain Niggl now ran, hands pressed to his ears, for piercing shrieks were coming from the side corridor where the dressing station had been installed. The same shrieks had rung out across the field when the two dead men and nine of the wounded were shot down 50m in front of him. The lovely morning mist had been suddenly torn apart – the rest could be imagined. Herr Niggl wasn’t used to running. His belly shuddered, and his sleeves rode up. They looked much too short. But he ran. Under the dull light from the electric bulbs, he fled the unrestrained howling of tormented flesh.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dress rehearsal
WHEN EBERHARD KROYSING thought about Captain Niggl, his soul danced and sang, and the fort’s murderous grey air seemed to twinkle secretly. He was biding his time. There would be a lot to do in the coming days, for rain had suddenly set in overnight, and many were looking on it as the start of the autumn downpours. A fine, persistent drizzle fell from leaden clouds; when they woke in the morning, the land was already glistening with countless puddles and pools. The war had gone silent in astonishment.
‘Süßmann,’ said Kroysing, smoking his pipe in his cell and sprawled lazily on his bed, ‘we’ll finish my painting this morning.’ The plan for the construction of six new mine throwers drawn in crayon lay unfinished on the table. ‘But in the afternoon, we’ll have a look at the damage. If this doesn’t stop, we’ve seriously miscalculated and started our preparations too late.’
Süßmann confidently asserted that it would stop. ‘It’s just a shower, as we say in Berlin,’ he predicted. ‘And a benevolent one. Hurry up, she’s saying. Where are the First and Second Companies, she’s saying.’
‘And she’s quite right,’ said Kroysing cheerfully, ‘and deserves a schnapps or even a brandy. Pass me the bottle, Süßmann. We’ll allow ourselves one as her proxy.’
Süßmann grinned happily and fetched the tall bottle, still half full, from the lieutenant’s cabinet, along with two of the kind of small tumblers found in every French café. He poured two shots and put them on the iron stool by the head of Kroysing’s bed. The lieutenant told him to dig in, inhaled the scent from the golden liquid that filled the room and took a slow swig with unconfined pleasure, lost in the drink, man’s great comforter.
‘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 poo
r 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.’
They were silent for a moment, then Bertin said diffidently: ‘I must be abnormal then. I want nothing more than to perform my duties as an ASC private to the best of my abilities and for there to be an honourable peace soon so I can go back to my wife and my work.’
‘Wife,’ mocked Kroysing. ‘Work. Honourable peace. You’re in for a shock, and anyway you can find someone else to believe that— what was that?’
All three of them sat up straight as pokers and listened. A lacerating howl descended on them from the clouds, a dreadful sound; then a primordial crashing and rolling smashed through the rooms – not as near as they’d feared. ‘Up and have a look,’ called Süßmann.
‘Stay put,’ commanded Kroysing. There was running in the corridor outside the door. He picked up the telephone. ‘Ring me immediately you get news.’ The telephonist’s voice was still shaking with fear. Kroysing surveyed his guest with satisfaction. Bertin was surprised at himself: he felt the same wild delight he had when he chased across the shelled area with Böhne and Schultz. Sergeant Süßmann’s hands shook as he said that it could only have been a long-range 38cm or a 42cm, a German one that had fallen short. The telephone rattled; highest calibre, direct strike to the western trenches, reported the exchange. Extensive damage to the outer walls. Kroysing thanked them. Out of the question that the 42cm was so far out. Three thousand metres too short – no way. Even with the dunderheads back there.
‘Watch out,’ he warned. ‘Number two.’ This time all three of them ducked. Süßmann slid under the table. No one breathed. The splintered air screamed behind the lump of steel, getting closer, close, there. Red and yellow flash at the window. Thunder blast in the room. Plaster and paintwork on the table. The electric lamp went out. The men’s chairs shook beneath them. ‘Strike,’ said Kroysing calmly. The crash above their heads had been brighter and wilder than before, and had boomed louder too.
‘No harm done,’ said Süßmann, jumping up entirely without shame as if he were the only one who’d responded proportionately. Kroysing stated that unless he was very much mistaken the strike had taken down the armoured turret in the north-west wing. He asked to be connected to the turret. The other two watched expectantly as his face broke into a satisfied smile. ‘Damnable nation, the French. They can shoot but they can fortify too. The turret took a direct hit and withstood it. A new calibre, according to the NCO, a morta
r heavier than the 38cm from Fort Marre. A new type, then, probably ordered in for the Somme.’
‘And they’re rehearsing it on us,’ said Süßmann, while Kroysing tried to speak to the turret again. This time the exchange reported that the turret had been temporarily evacuated on account of the gases from the explosion. It hadn’t been entirely spared. It could no longer be turned. ‘As long as that’s it,’ said Kroysing, hanging up. And then he sent Süßmann and Bertin off with emergency lights to see how the ASC men were coping with the incident.
They didn’t have to go far. The tunnel in front of the Bavarians’ casemate was filled with the ASC men’s cursing, wailing and crying, as they crouched down or struggled to get away. Their NCOs, brandishing torches, only just managed to stop them rushing out into the courtyard. At the entrance to the intersecting corridor, faintly illuminated by the daylight, stood Captain Niggl, his bottom lip between his teeth, bare-headed and in slippers, with his Litevka unbuttoned. Acting Lieutenant Simmerding pushed through to him, while Sergeant Major Feicht tried to calm down the men at the back of the corridor in his hoarse voice. The men were hopping mad, panted Simmerding. They didn’t want to stay in this place. They were unarmed reservists, not frontline soldiers. They’d no business here.
‘Not that mad,’ said Niggl under his breath, his eyes staring and becoming angry when Süßmann appeared with his black miner’s lamp. Unfortunately, the sapper’s strict military bearing gave him no way in. Niggl told him to inform the lieutenant that the men’s sleep had been interrupted, some of them had been thrown from their beds, there had been instances of grazed skin and a sprained wrist, and their nerves had of course taken a jolt. The bloody thing must have come down right above the casemate. Süßmann uttered soothing words, mainly to the men: the shots had been meant for the B-tower, which had also been hit, and the fact that the concrete had withstood such a heavy strike was the best proof there was of the vaults’ strength. For it had been a new type of gun, also a 42cm – he had no idea how close this improvisation was to the truth. And so the men should not let their rest be disturbed, for goodness’ sake, and should take consolation from that and go back to the casemate and to bed. The depot would issue an extra ration of rum with evening tea because of the shock.
Outside Verdun Page 14