The valley was empty and silent: half an hour earlier it had contained tanks, artillery, staff officers in their vehicles, the whole hysterical uproar that precedes an attack. Now it was quiet. The doctor was sitting under a tree. Behind me, more wounded men were slowly arriving. I was the first patient of this attack.
“Over here, my friend,” said the doctor. He lifted the shreds of cloth. It tickled a bit; then he clucked his tongue and said: “Spit, please.” I gagged, my throat was all dry, but I managed to produce a blob.
“Nothing,” said the doctor. “You’ve been lucky, doesn’t seem to be anything in your lungs. But, Jesus, that could’ve been a bad one!” He gave me a tetanus shot. I asked for some water, and he pulled out a flask. I reached out for it, but he held it to my mouth and allowed me only a brief swallow. “Take it easy, lad—d’you have any pain?”
“Yes.”
He gave me a pill. I swallowed it. I didn’t feel a thing, it was a marvellous wound, made to order, it would take at least four months for the hole to heal, and by that time the war would be over.
“There, you can go now,” said the doctor. Next in line stood a man who had been shot in the calf; he was groaning with pain, but he had walked all the way here, using his rifle as a stick.
The valley was magnificent, the loveliest valley I had ever seen. Just bare slopes covered with steppe grass sweltering in the sun. A hazy sky above, nothing else. But it was the most magnificent valley, as glorious as my wound that didn’t hurt me and yet was serious. I walked slowly, no longer thirsty and with no back-pack—I’d left that at the front. And I was alone. I sat down somewhere and had a smoke. All this takes time off the war, I thought, they can’t touch you, you’ve been wounded and you’re entitled to a bit of a rest. From my vantage point I could look down on the place where the doctor was. There were a lot of men down there, some of them walking along the valley and looking in that barren scene like strollers in the desert. A car was parked there too, right beside the doctor, but I didn’t feel like being driven in it, I had plenty of time, they couldn’t touch me.
Slowly I walked on. Only now did I realize what a long way we had advanced from Jassy. No matter how often I reached the top of a ridge, there was nothing of the town’s white walls to be seen. It was very quiet, apart from a few desultory shots in the distance. Then I saw a forest, and out of the forest came a big, furious car raising a cloud of dust. It was really angry, that car, impatient, irritable, annoyed. It stopped right in front of me. In it sat our general, wearing his steel helmet, and when generals wear their steel helmets something has gone wrong. There was also a colonel, wearing a Knight’s Cross, no other decoration. It looked very chic and elegant. The general stood up in the car and yelled at me: “What d’you suppose you’re doing?”
“I’ve been wounded, sir,” I replied, and turned round. I almost had to laugh, it was so funny the way I turned my backside to the general.
“It’s all right, son.” I turned again. His round, red face was still furious, as furious as the car, even though he’d said “son”. Generals always say “son”; they don’t show much imagination when they speak to you.
“How are things up front?” he asked.
“First they went back, then forward again, I don’t really know.”
“Where’s your rifle, son?”
“Smashed, sir. It was a hand grenade, fell right beside me. My rifle lay on that side and got smashed to pieces.”
“Here, have a smoke,” he said, handing me a whole packet of cigarettes. Generals usually hand out cigarettes. I thanked him by standing to attention, and off they drove. The colonel touched his cap, which I found quite something considering he had the Knight’s Cross and I had nothing on my chest.
On coming out of the forest I saw the town lying all white on its hills and looking magnificent. I felt very happy, they couldn’t touch me, I’d been wounded right at the front, ten metres away from the Russians, and maybe I was a hero. They couldn’t touch me. I was carrying my haversack, it contained two pairs of socks, and for that I would drink some wine in town, maybe get something to eat, but the idea of eating made me feel quite sick; I’d had nothing to eat or drink for a day and a half. Yet at the thought of the wine I walked faster. I crossed a heath that was all torn up by tank tracks and bombs; a few corpses were lying around, and some dead horses. Beyond this bit of heath the path rose steeply past some houses: I was in town. A tram was waiting in a square. I ran to catch it, like at home. I just made it, and we moved off at once. Maybe the driver had seen me, I thought, and waited for me. The tram was empty. It must have been about noon. It was hot; to right and left the houses slept in the sun. There were only a few dogs running round, and some chickens.
The conductress came towards me with her pouch, wanting money. That’s right, I thought, the Romanians are our allies, we’re supposed to pay. I shrugged and laughed. But she was quite serious. “Nix,” she said firmly. Turning my wound towards her I said: “Kaputt, see?” but that didn’t move her. She shrugged her shoulders and rubbed thumb and forefinger. “Nix,” she repeated. Digging into my haversack I found some writing paper, a few crushed cigarettes that I intended to smoke in my pipe, the socks, and a pair of nail scissors. I showed her the nail scissors. The driver raced along at breakneck speed. Some other people had got on. The conductress attended to them, then came back. I showed her the scissors. “How many lei?” I asked. She wrinkled her nose. She was quite pretty, and I could see that the scissors appealed to her. She snipped her nails with them, smiled at me, and indicated “twenty” with her fingers. I nodded. I was so happy, for they couldn’t touch me, maybe I was a hero, I’d been wounded right at the front, ten metres away from the Russians. The conductress gave me a ten-lei bill and the ticket for five lei. That was all. But I didn’t mind. I was happy, they couldn’t touch me.
I turned to look out at my surroundings. We passed a café, and I remembered I hadn’t had anything to drink for two days and had a raging thirst. The tram stopped at a big square where there was a cinema for the military and some cafés and department stores. It was a busy scene, with soldiers milling round, and whores, and peddlers with their barrows. The whores were fantastically beautiful, with almond eyes and scarlet mouths, but they looked pretty pricey to me.
I got off and went into a café; no one paid any attention to me, no one saw the wound in my back, a superb wound, all bloody, with shreds of cloth and needing at least four months to heal. There was just one soldier in the café, sitting at the back, a corporal, and I could tell at once that he was drunk. To the left sat a man with black hair, coal black, and a fat, pale face, eating a pickled cucumber and smoking a black cigar. To the right sat a woman who smiled at me. She was smoking a cigarette, puffing fiendish smoke rings.
“Lover boy!” she called out, but I didn’t like the looks of her, and I was sure she would be very pricey. The corporal at the back called out: “Hey, there!” I walked towards him. His eyes were dim and unfocused. His chest was covered with medals, and he had a large carafe of wine in front of him.
“Help yourself!” he said. My God, how glorious it was to drink! I drank straight from the carafe. My God, how wonderful it was to drink! I could physically feel how parched I was, and it was a cool wine, on the dry side.
“Help yourself!” said the corporal, but the carafe was empty. “Hey, pal!” he called out, and a greasy-looking fellow immediately came from behind a curtain, snatched up the carafe, and carried it off. The black-haired man was now sitting with the woman, who was as blonde as he was dark. He let her take a bite of his pickle and a puff of his cigar; then they both laughed, and the black-haired man called out towards the curtain something that sounded like Latin, a slushy kind of Latin.
The greasy youth arrived with the carafe, a bigger one than the last, and he also brought along another glass.
“Help yourself!” said the corporal.
He poured, and we drank. I drank, I drank, it was glorious, it was wonderful.
“Have a smoke,” said the corporal, but I hauled out my general’s packet and slapped it onto the table. The blonde woman was laughing with the black-haired man; now they were drinking wine. Wine on top of pickles, I thought, that’s asking for trouble, but they seemed to be enjoying it as they blew their fiendish smoke rings in the air.
“Drink away,” said the corporal. “I have to go back to the front tonight, for the fifth time, goddammit!”
“Take the tram,” I said, “I’ve just come from there, for the third time.”
“Where’ve you come from?”
“From the front.”
“Did you skedaddle?”
“No, I was wounded.”
“Oh, come on!”
I showed him my back.
“Goddammit,” he exclaimed, “aren’t you the lucky one! That’s fantastic. Sell it to me!”
“Sell what?”
“That thing there, that red mess on your back—sell it to me!”
He slapped a whole pile of bills on the table, picked up the carafe, and lifted it to his mouth. Then I drank, then he, then I …
“Hey, pal!” he called.
The greasy youth reappeared and brought another carafe, and we drank.
“Sell it to me, you coward,” shouted the corporal. “I’ll give you a thousand lei, two thousand, three thousand, you can buy yourself the best-looking whores, and tobacco, and wine, and you …”
“But you can buy wounds right here, they made me an offer at the station.”
The corporal suddenly turned sober and grabbed my arm.
“Where?” he asked hoarsely.
“At the station,” I said, “they made me an offer right there.”
“Hey, pal!” shouted the corporal. “How much?” He slapped some money on the table, grabbed my arm, and said: “Wait here.”
He put on his cap, tightened his belt and left.
The greasy youth brought another carafe. “It’s paid for,” he said with a grin. And I drank. The blonde woman was sitting on the black-haired man’s knee, shrieking away. She had a cigar in her mouth and a cold pork chop in her hand. The black-haired man was already quite drunk. I drank and smoked. It was glorious, I was drunk, wonderfully drunk, and I’d been wounded, and they couldn’t touch me, maybe I was a hero. Wounded for the third time. The wine was glorious, glorious …
“Hey, pal!” I called out. The greasy youth came and stood grinning in front of me. I pulled the socks out of my haversack and held them out: “How much wine?” He shrugged and wrinkled his nose, then took the socks and held them up to his face. “Not new,” he said, sniffing with his long nose.
“How much?” I asked.
“Give you wine, two like that.” He pointed at the carafe.
“Bring it,” I said, “bring it here, the wine.”
He brought it. Both carafes at once. I drank, I drank, it was glorious, it was wonderful, I was completely drunk, but as sober as only a happy man can be. It was indescribable how cool and dry the wine was, and I paid for it with two pairs of socks. The woman ate a second pork chop as she smoked a cigarette. She was a thin little creature and shrieked like crazy as she sat on the black-haired man’s knee. I saw everything clear as clear, drunk though I was. I could see she wasn’t wearing either a slip or underpants, and the black-haired man kept pinching her behind; that made her shriek, she shrieked because of that too. Then the black-haired man started yelling his head off, lifted the woman high in the air, and carried her out through the door.
At that moment the corporal walked in again.
“Help yourself!” I called out to him.
“Hey, pal!” shouted the corporal, whereupon the greasy youth appeared at once.
“Wine!” shouted the corporal. “A whole barrel of wine!” and I knew that it had worked. He picked up my second carafe, drank it down at one go, and smashed it against the wall.
“Those fellows,” said the corporal, “do a great job. Pistol with silencer. You stand round a corner and stick out your paw, and plop—take a look.”
He pulled up his sleeve. They had put a nice clean hole through his forearm, bandaged it, and even supplied him with a casualty certificate.
The greasy youth brought a large carafe. The corporal was beside himself, shouting and drinking, shouting and drinking. And said: “My name’s Hubert.”
And I drank; it was wonderful.
Then we went off to the first-aid station. Hubert knew all the ropes. As we arrived, a few freight cars were just being loaded with minor casualties. There were two doctors, and in front of each stood a long queue of walking wounded. Since we were drunk, we wanted to come last. We joined the second queue because that doctor looked kinder than the other one. A corporal stood beside him calling out “Next!” Some cases took a long time, and those who had been treated walked through a long corridor leading to a courtyard.
We sat down on a bench, since we were drunk and rather unsteady on our legs. Next to me sat a man who’d had a bullet through the palm of his hand, clear through it, and he was bleeding like a pig onto the bench. He was quite grey in the face.
The doctors were working with the door open, cigarettes between their lips, and sometimes they would take a pull from a bottle. They were slaving away like crazy, and the one I was queuing up for had a nice face, an intelligent face, and I noticed he had skilful, quiet hands. A vehicle arrived with some serious casualties, and we had to wait. The corporal shut the door, and we could hear screams, and there was an even stronger smell of blood and ether. The man with the injured hand had fallen asleep and had stopped bleeding. The blood from his hand had gone all over me, and when I took my paybook out of my left pocket I found it soaked in blood; the first few pages were no longer legible. I was drunk, I didn’t care, and they couldn’t, they couldn’t touch me, they couldn’t get at me, I’d been wounded, I’d been wounded right at the front, and maybe I was even a hero.
So now I was the unknown soldier.
I said aloud to myself, “I am the unknown soldier,” but the others, sitting on the ground or on the bench, called out “Shut up!” I shut up and looked out onto the street. Hubert had fallen asleep, with his arm stuck out stiffly; it looked very impressive, like a genuine battle injury. They had done a good job; I must be sure and ask him how much it cost. And if the war wasn’t over in four months, I’d get them to shoot me through the arm, too, then I’d get the gold badge, then I’d be a proper official hero, and they wouldn’t be able to touch me at all. But now he was asleep, they still hadn’t finished with the six stretcher cases, and all we could hear was their screaming. I wasn’t all that drunk any more. Someone in the queue suddenly asked quietly: “Got a smoke, anyone?” I recognized the man with the leg who had supported himself on his rifle. But he didn’t recognize me. He still had his rifle, and his face was the face of a real hero. He was proud. I gave him a few of the general’s cigarettes. Hubert was sound asleep and snoring; now his face was quite happy. Then the door opened, and the corporal called out again, “Next!”
After that everything went very fast, and no more vehicles arrived. I was still drunk after all, but I felt fine, with no pain to speak of.
“Hey, next, it’s your turn!” the corporal shouted.
I stepped into a classroom where the benches had been piled up and Marshal Antonescu looked down from the wall, together with Crown Prince Michael. There was a disgusting smell of blood and ether. I took off my tunic and shirt, unaided; I was still drunk. “Hurry up!” said the corporal. Crown Prince Michael had a really stupid Hohenzollern face, and he was boss over the black-haired people and the whores and the greasy youths, the onions and the pickles and the wine. But Romania was a real mess, and he’d never bring it off, nor would Antonescu.
At that moment I became perfectly sober, for the doctor was snipping away in my back. I could feel nothing as he had given me a local anaesthetic, but it is a very queer sensation when they snip away in you like that. I could see it all quite clearly: in front of
me was a big glass-doored cupboard and behind me a glass instrument-case. And I could see my smooth back and the big hole in it, and the doctor snipping the edges nice and smooth and picking something out of the hole. I felt like a frozen carcass being divided up between two butchers. His snipping was quick and deft; then he dabbed something onto the wound, and I saw that the hole had become much bigger. Go on, make it a little bigger, I thought, then it’ll take six months. Maybe the doctor was thinking the same thing. Once again he started snipping and probing. Then came more dabbing, and the corporal, who had been holding me as a matter of routine, went to the door and called out, “Next!”
“Hand grenade, was it, my boy?” the doctor asked as he placed a large wad of cotton wool on the hole in my back.
“I think so,” I replied.
“Quite a nice long piece, want to keep it?” He held out a crumpled, bloodied strip of metal.
“No, thanks,” I said. He tossed it in the garbage can, and I could see a leg lying there, a real, perfectly good, splendid leg. I was cold sober.
“I’m sure there’s a bit of wood in there still, and some shreds of cloth, they’ll all have to come out with the pus—just make certain nothing stays behind.” He laughed. The corporal bandaged me up, winding all kinds of stuff round me, and now dammit I really did feel like a hero, goddammit, wounded by a hand grenade, right at the front.
The doctor looked at Hubert’s clean hole, then at the corporal, and his expression became serious. “Made to order, my friend, just made to order.”
I felt hot all over, but Hubert remained cool.
“A really magnificent home-leave shot, that’s the fifth today,” said the corporal.
“Magnificent,” said the doctor, but he didn’t touch it, merely glanced at the corporal, and the corporal, who was still bandaging me, went across to have a good look at it; then he too looked at Hubert. “Magnificent,” he said.
The doctor, sitting with his legs crossed, was smoking a cigarette. He didn’t touch the wound. Hubert was quite calm but no longer drunk.
The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll Page 72