Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  Huge clouds of black and white smoke billowed up from the depot; the explosives dumps were on fire. A gently sloping 12m high earthen ridge still stood between the barracks and the exploded shells. But the swathes of smoke would tell the French gunners where to aim. Standing in the doorway, Bertin was suddenly aware of two contrasting movements. Lieutenant Benndorf, the depot adjutant, was hirpling up to the orderly room with his walking stick, while Sergeant Schneevoigt, dirty and pale, was trotting down the earthen ridge followed by two of his men carrying a bulging tarpaulin between them.

  ‘Who’ve you got there?’ Büttner’s boyish voice soared past Bertin’s cap. Old Schneevoigt, a barber by trade, didn’t answer. He was swallowing hard, and his face was almost the same colour and as his moustache. He just shook his fist at the columns of smoke.

  ‘It was once little Vehse,’ said one of the stretcher bearers for him. ‘He’s gone.’

  Hildebrandt the tall blacksmith had come running over in the meantime. He’d collected a few bandages from the sick room and said there were three more dead among the explosives dumps: Hein Foth, the dirtiest man in the company, and the illiterate farm labourer Wilhelm Schmidt. They’d both run right into an exploding shell. Another man by the name of Reinhold had been killed by a direct hit. Bertin started – good-natured little Otto Reinhold. ‘One of the original ones from Küstrin, if that’s who you mean,’ confirmed Hildebrandt.

  A man from his own squad. And Wilhelm Schmidt and the lice-infested Foth were near neighbours of his too. No doubt he’d have been ordered out into the depot too if he hadn’t been ‘inside’. But there was no time for these deliberations now. Old Schneevoigt had found his tongue again and walked a few steps towards them. ‘Get out of here!’ he shouted. ‘There are a dozen wounded lying in the ditches by the road. Do you want to join them?’ and he trotted back into the sick bay, while another two of his men dragged over a tarpaulin, a brown one this time.

  Sergeant Büttner gathered his pale lads around him. All of them were tall, but he was taller. He explained to them that the company had left, and so they were dismissed from guard duty and could leave too if they wanted. They buckled on their belts and rolled up their blankets. Bertin disappeared into his cell. While he hastily parcelled up his rations and blankets, pulled on his coat and felt in his pockets, he said his goodbyes to the slatted walls, the plank bed and the window. They’d brought him refreshment and allowed him to plunge back into an earlier existence, and he would never forget that. Now the Frogs had brought it to a premature end. In the guardroom, heavily laden men pushed towards the door. Just then another tarpaulin was carried past. Schneevoigt could be seen in the open doorway of the sick room, kneeling beside something unrecognisable and half in shadow. With an immense howl another shell crashed into the depot. Everyone ducked and pulled their heads in. Smoke billowed outside the window. Shell splinters or lumps of earth drummed against the wall. Then from the orderly room a clear voice shouted: ‘Everybody out! Firemen, fall in. Forward march to the depot. Put out those explosive dumps!’

  Lieutenant Benndorf stood there, fighting with his coat. His right arm was already in the sleeve, and he pointed with his walking stick to the soaring columns of thick smoke. The men in the guardroom shrunk back the tiniest bit. They weren’t firemen, but they’d have to obey the order. Bertin in particular felt compelled to obey, though he wasn’t sure why. He was overcome by a sense of responsibility for things that had nothing to do with him, and felt an impulse to throw away his bundle of blankets and follow his officer, who would shortly disappear past the barracks into the field of fire. But what happened? The lieutenant was indeed moving, but he turned his back on the orderly room, hobbled frantically towards the road, turned at the top of the stairs and again shouted: ‘Put out the explosive dumps!’ then clattered down the steps to the road on his gammy leg. There – Bertin could hardly believe his eyes – a grey car pulled up. Colonel Stein, his red face unrecognisable against the wide back seat, was waving both his arms about like a madman, his mouth a round, shouting hole. Eventually the lieutenant flung himself on to the other seat, and before he had even slammed the door shut the car sped of towards Damvillers. Bertin stared in blank astonishment, then he slapped his thigh, burst out laughing and turned to Büttner who’d followed him outside.

  ‘Might as well scarper,’ he said with contempt.

  ‘Company to report at Gibercy!’ shouted a passing telephonist who’d just run out of the switchboard room. The next minute there was a fresh crash, this time on the earthen ridge, and shell splinters whistled over the guardroom hut. A stream of tall ASC men thundered down the steps. The remaining heroes from 1/X/20 were evacuating their depot.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A telephone call

  ‘COMPANY TO REPORT at Gibercy.’ Private Bertin, in his overcoat and field cap, with his bundle under his arm, stopped halfway down the steps to the street and deliberated. He was now almost alone. There would soon be another crash behind him. He knew exactly what he was going to do. His thinking was crystal clear – he was no longer an oppressed soldier led by others. He was an educated man of 28 evaluating the situation. The village of Gibercy lay among large empty camps beyond the hills. But the road leading there crossed a broad flat hollow vulnerable to shells and to observation from the captive balloon. Where was the most secure place in the camp complex? Definitely the former mill, once a bathing station and now the field gun depot. Field gun ammunition is the most dangerous of all because it comprises cartridges and shells, and men who knew what they were doing had chosen to store it in that depot… Bertin ran. Down the stairway, along the slope of the road and the duck boards, between the grass mounds that separated the various ammunition dumps. The ammunitions expert Sergeant Schulz lived in a hut on the bank of a stream called the Theinte with two subordinates: little Strauß and stiff-legged Fannrich – just as Sergeant Knappe lived beside the siege gun ammunition in the upper park, though being a more solitary type than the lively Schulz he lived alone. The hut was empty; its occupants had fled. Never mind, thought Bertin. I’m here now: j’y suis, j’y reste. A warm stove, a camp bed and blankets, dry wood, a canteen, stores of coffee, sugar and cigars. The coffee was good enough for a family; you just had to grind it on a bit of newspaper with an empty bottle. Bertin listened uneasily to what was going on outside: dull crashing. It seemed to be following the little troop that had hurried up the hill earlier. Much better to roam round someone else’s billet with the kettle boiling. On the right was Fannrich and Strauß’s room, on the left Herr Schulz’s sanctuary, demarcated by a tarpaulin, and in the middle a little hall where a telephone sat on a small table. You could live the high life here. Nice view of the tumbling burn, afternoon sun on the windows, no men from the company, no depot commanders, nothing… They fairly skedaddled, Bertin thought, as a hiss told him the water was ready. And as he tipped the roughly ground beans into the boiling water and stirred the thick mixture with a shard of wood: they really did scarper! Be fair, he told himself, as he hung his tunic up beside his overcoat and a pleasant coffee smell mixed with the smoke from the cigar he’d pinched: be fair, man. Officer’s stripes don’t protect you from shell-fire. And Benndorf had been hit long ago, which was why he limped, and fat Stein as well, back in the days when high ups such as colonels got wounded in the field. Even Panje of Vranje had once sat bravely on his nag until the last man in the column had swung into cover. How long ago was that? Nine months? That was life behind the lines for you.

  The sky had darkened in the meantime, and rain began to drum on the roof. Well, thought Bertin, that’ll put the explosives dumps out without any help from me, and then everyone will be happy. You can never have too much rain in wartime. Four dead, he thought, more than a dozen wounded, and the administrative heads are on leave and the officers have buggered off in a car – funny old world, and it certainly does make you think, though my name isn’t Pahl. They can all go to hell, as far as I’m concerned. Strauß had books, some of which
Bertin had lent to him. He decided to celebrate by reading for an hour or so. He examined the bookshelf by a pile of old newspapers. He could’ve looked over his own manuscript but he wanted to steer clear of the present, and so eventually he chose The Golden Pot, magicked up by E.T.A. Hoffmann 100 years previously. It was raining outside. He savoured every mouthful of his black coffee, steeped in a timeless world of gnomes and salamanders, ghostly advisers and charming maidens, and the city of Dresden as it had never been… Then the telephone shrilled. Bertin started, torn from the waking dream Hoffmann had created. It really didn’t concern him. The three men in charge of that phone would be playing skat in a dugout somewhere on the Flabas road – God alone knew which one. But Private Bertin was at the table about to lift the receiver when the phone shrilled again.

  ‘No one there,’ Bertin heard the voice on the line say.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ he said quickly. ‘Steinbergquell field gun depot.’

  ‘They’re there now, Lieutenant,’ the voice said.

  ‘Hello, you’ve not been flattened then? We heard you were on fire.’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Bertin replied. ‘There was quite a bit of smoke, but we’re still here.’

  ‘Can we stock up with you, then?’

  ‘Depends on the calibre,’ Bertin replied.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ came the angry reply. ‘Have you just fallen from the moon? Which bore do you think a German field gun has?’

  So the telephonists had faithfully plugged the connection before clearing off. This really was a field gun battery on the line. Now he could hear someone else chipping in, an officer. Where do I know that voice from? he wondered. Have I done something stupid? Then he gave the required information. The bombardment had caused severe damage to the heavy ammunition. The company had departed and the depot commanders had withdrawn, presumably to Damvillers.

  ‘Withdrawn – hmm. And how come you’re answering the telephone?’

  ‘Coincidence, Lieutenant,’ Bertin replied in embarrassment, unable to think of anything better on the spur of the moment. How could he have known he was speaking to the field guns? He couldn’t have. But where do I know that voice from, he wondered again.

  ‘A happy coincidence,’ said the other man. ‘In any case, you obviously haven’t “departed”. That shouldn’t be forgotten. We’ll be there about five, five thirty – as soon as we can. We’re going to hold on here,’ Bertin heard him shouting to his men. ‘God preserve me but one of the lads has kept his head. Tell me,’ he said, reverting to Bertin, ‘haven’t we spoken before? Aren’t you that lad with the glasses from Wild Boar gorge, who in October… what’s your name again?’

  Bertin had a flash of illumination. ‘Am I speaking to Lieutenant von Roggstroh?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, you see,’ said the lieutenant with satisfaction, ‘you haven’t forgotten me. But now you must tell me your name.’ Bertin told him and asked to be excused if he had done anything wrong, explaining that he really was in the field gun depot by chance and didn’t know how it operated. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the lieutenant. ‘You’re the last of the Mohicans, and I’m going to put you in for an Iron Cross just as surely as we were together in that dreadful howitzer emplacement on the Mort Homme. I always knew you weren’t really cut out for the ASC.’ Bertin flushed and protested nervously that the field gun depot had simply struck him as the safest place and he didn’t deserve a medal for being there. ‘Of course,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Exactly. Have you ever heard of anyone getting an Iron Cross because he deserved it? Goodbye, my young hero. See you at five or half past.’ Thinking he might now venture a question of his own, Bertin asked if the French had advanced very far. ‘They got what they needed,’ said the lieutenant evenly. ‘We’ll take a look at the damage tomorrow. See you later.’ And he hung up.

  Bertin sat there for a moment, dazed, then he replaced the receiver. Had the black coffee agitated his system or was he trembling with joy? He had thought the mean spiritedness that pervaded the battalion had extinguished any spark in him. But it must simply have hidden it, for he was alight now. What would the battery have done if he had fled too? Four guns with no ammunition were about as much use as four sewing machines. They’d have had to be hauled out of their emplacements and sent back, assuming the horses could manage it, and would’ve been no use that night, the next day or perhaps forever. He had prevented that, and it hadn’t just been chance and because he wanted a comfortable billet; it was also down to clear thinking on his part. Bertin strutted round the room in grim elation. He was master of an entire ammunitions depot, of all the shrapnel, cartridges and shells, of the telephone, grassy mounds and burn, and he’d just helped hold the front. Everyone did things their own way. They’re welcome to give me the Iron Cross, he thought. The war won’t be over tomorrow. What had poor Vehse said just 24 hours before he was hauled away in that blood-soaked tarpaulin? ‘That’s your answer to the peace initiative…’ Yes, it seemed the French didn’t go a bundle on imperial pronouncements… But happily there were lieutenants who held firm, and their words carried weight. No sense hiding your light under a bushel. On 27 January, the Kaiser’s birthday, Herr Graßnick would have to call Private Bertin out of the line again, but this time he’d be rasping out a congratulatory speech. Pretty good going for a skilled craftsman from Kreuzberg to have two sons in the newspapers because they’d got the Iron Cross.

  At nightfall, Sergeant Schultz opened the hut door and walked in with Privates Strauß and Fannrich to find Private Bertin cosied up by the stove, puffing on his pipe.

  ‘You’ve certainly made yourself at home,’ marvelled Strauß.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in my den?’ asked Schulz in amazement.

  ‘I thought it was the safest place,’ said Bertin confidently. ‘They can’t drop shells here.’

  Schulz took off his coat. ‘Oh, can’t they,’ he joked. ‘My dear man, if they had raised that damned long-range gun over there, which gave us such an untimely pounding today, just a fraction higher, you and the whole kit and kaboodle would have been blown to kingdom come.’

  Bertin sat down on a bunk, nonplussed. ‘Really?’ he said.

  Fannrich nodded, pouring fresh water on the coffee grounds. ‘You can depend on it,’ he said.

  Crestfallen, Bertin tried to defend himself by saying he’d made himself useful.

  ‘By making coffee,’ said Strauß.

  ‘By negotiating with field gunners,’ countered Bertin.

  Schulz swung round to interrogate him about what had happened. ‘Thank God you kept your head,’ he said, relieved. ‘Who knows what would have happened to me. But you’ll have to report at Gibercy now. If Susemihl gives you any trouble, put him on to me.’

  Bertin gave the moustachioed technician a disappointed look. He would’ve liked to stay. ‘Herr Susemihl won’t give me any trouble,’ Bertin snapped. ‘Lieutenant von Roggstroh from the Royal Guard Artillery will see to that. By the way, if he asks for me, please explain why I left.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ said Schulz impatiently. ‘Did you find some rum or something?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Bertin, standing up. ‘Why, have you got some?’

  ‘Get a move on, man, or it’ll be dark before you’re back with your company.’

  Despite Bertin’s confidence, it soon became clear that the ammunitions expert with the little twirly moustache knew the world better than he did. When he finally pitched up at Gibercy, Susemihl, who was in charge, gave him a bit of a ticking off. Bertin defended himself calmly, and his composure and the lieutenant’s name did make some impression. But the elation he’d felt as he made his way back home in the dark to the massive troop tents of the camp evaporated. Nothing in particular happened, but his elation shrivelled up to be replaced by a terrible exhaustion. Perhaps he’d expected too much, and that was why he was disappointed. Or perhaps the constant confusion within the company – the familiar traffic of countermanded orders and revoked decisions – we
ighed on his soul.

  They buried the dead at Gibercy, with a fifth coffin added to the previous four – the salesman Dagener had died of his wounds. In the murk of the shortest day, battered by wind and rain, the column trudged over to Damvillers, received orders from the battalion issued by a sallow and angry Major Jansch, and marched back to Moirey to dismantle the Steinbergquell depot. At the depot, the men piled ammunition, planks, trench props, barbed wire and tarpaulins, all dripping with icy sludge, on to lorries and took them back to Damvillers. They stayed there for a day in draughty huts, before driving the same heavily laden lorries back to Moirey to carry out orders to set the depot back up on exactly the same spot as before. Out of the muck, into the muck, muttered the ASC men bitterly. And so it was that they spent Christmas and New Year in the same barracks they’d been chased out of with so many casualties. At Christmas, Herr Susemihl gave a speech under a tree covered in lights, stuttering on about the peace the enemy didn’t want. And then Herr Pfund distributed the Christmas presents he’d procured in Metz – blunt pocket knives, hankies with red borders, apples, nuts and a little tobacco – and the deceit radiating from his shining eyes and from the gifts themselves gave the more discerning men the creeps. And if the crown prince hadn’t given each of his brave Verdun campaigners a curved steel case filled with cigarettes or cigars, which fitted comfortably into the pocket and was enamelled in black and adorned with the donor’s portrait, it might have been a pretty miserable Christmas. But that all paled into insignificance when they returned to the half-empty barracks where the second half of the company including Bertin’s squad was now billeted. A couple of candles burned in canteen lids, and the men lay around in silence or talking quietly. Quite a number of comrades were missing, and unlike the ones who’d left before because they were reassessed for active service or had been claimed for work at home, these ones wouldn’t be heard from again. They’d been part of the men’s lives. They’d argued with them and made up again, and now little Vehse, poor Przygulla and that kindly soul Otto Reinhold lay buried in French soil and would be replaced in the New Year, this time from Metz. But they couldn’t be replaced, and their ghosts slid invisibly among their comrades and fellow skat players, evaporating only very slowly. And yet no one spoke of them, just as no one spoke of the daily routine unless something irksome or funny happened. Everything the men had experienced, and that the world had experienced during this war, slid beneath the layers of their consciousness into the deeper chambers of the mind, where sooner or later it would spit and rage. But the men needed to concentrate in order to deal with the demands placed on them each day and on the surface they showed only the usual permitted feelings and emotions, above all affection for their families. If they felt sorry for themselves or mourned their dead comrades, they did so obliquely in the general gloom. It was with such nuances of feeling that Halezinsky the gas worker looked at a picture of his wife and children with tears rolling down his Slavic face from his brown eyes. Only Lebehde the inn keeper carried on making punch cheerfully on his own from rum, tea and sugar, and its spicy aroma soon filled the room.