The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (24 page)

The main thing is that he shouldn’t let them down.

First came a face, large, yellow, tragic, moving past their lines; that was the general. The general looked tired. The face with puffy blue shadows under the malaria-yellow eyes, the slack, thin-lipped mouth of a man dogged by bad luck, moved hurriedly past the thousand men. The general started off at the right-hand corner of the dusty hollow square, looked sadly into each face, rounded the corners carelessly, with no dash or precision, and it was there for all to see: his chest bore plenty of medals, it sparkled with silver and gold, but his neck was empty, no decoration hung there. And although they knew that the Knight’s Cross around a general’s neck didn’t mean a lot, it was discouraging to see him without even that much. That skinny yellow neck, unadorned, was a reminder of lost battles, bungled retreats, of rebukes, the unpleasant, scathing rebukes exchanged among senior officers, of sarcastic telephone conversations, transferred chiefs of staff, and a tired, elderly man who seemed without hope as he took off his tunic in the evening and, with his thin legs, his malaria-racked body, sat down on the edge of his bed to drink schnapps. Each of the three times three hundred and thirty-three men into whose faces he looked was aware of a strange feeling: sorrow, pity, fear, and a secret fury. Fury at this war, which had already gone on far too long, far too long for a general’s neck to be still without its rightful decoration. The general raised his hand to his shabby cap—at least he saluted smartly—and on reaching the left-hand corner of the hollow square he made a somewhat brisker turn, walked to the middle of the open side, and stood still while the swarm of officers grouped itself around him, casually yet methodically; and it was embarrassing to see him standing there, with no decoration around his
neck, while the Knight’s Crosses of others, lower in rank, could be seen sparkling in the sun.

For a moment it looked as if he were going to say something, but he merely touched his cap again in an abrupt salute and turned so unexpectedly on his heel that the startled swarm of officers stepped back to let him pass. And everyone watched the short, spare figure get into the car, the officers saluted once again, and a swirling white cloud of dust announced that the general was driving west, where the sun was already quite low on the horizon, not far from those flat white roofs over there where the front did not exist.

Then they marched, three times one hundred and eleven men, to another part of the city, southward, past cafés of scruffy elegance, past movie houses and churches, through slums where dogs and chickens lay dozing in doorways, with slatternly, pretty, white-breasted women leaning on windowsills, where from dirty taverns came the monotonous, strangely stirring sound of drinking men singing. Streetcars screeched by at reckless speed—and then they came to a district where all was quiet. Here were villas surrounded by green gardens, army vehicles stood parked in front of stone gateways, and they marched through one of these stone gateways, entered meticulously tended grounds, and once again formed a hollow square, a smaller one this time, three times one hundred and eleven men.

Their packs were set down behind them, in rows, rifles were stacked, and when the men were standing at attention again, tired and hungry, thirsty, fuming and fed up with this damned war, when they were standing at attention again a thin, aristocratic face moved past their lines: that was the colonel, pale, hard-eyed, with tight lips and a long nose. They all took it for granted that the collar under this face should be adorned with the Knight’s Cross. But this face was not to their liking either. The colonel took the corners at right angles, with a slow, firm tread, without omitting a single pair of eyes, and when he finally swung into the open side, a few officers in his wake, they all knew he was about to say something, and they all had the same thought, how thirsty they were, how badly they needed something to drink and eat, or to sleep or smoke a cigarette.

“Fellow soldiers!” came the high-pitched, clear voice. “Fellow soldiers, I bid you welcome! I haven’t much to say to you, just this: it’s
up to us to chase those spineless creatures right back to their steppes. Understand?”

The voice paused, and the silence during this pause was embarrassing, almost deathly, and they all saw that by now the sun was red, dark red, and the deathly red reflection seemed to be caught in the Knight’s Cross at the colonel’s neck, concentrated in those four shining bars of the cross, and they saw for the first time that the cross was surmounted with oak leaves, which they called cabbage.

The colonel wore cabbage at his neck.

“Do you understand?” shouted the taut voice, cracking now.

“Yessir,” a few of the men called out, but the voices were hoarse, tired, listless.

“Do you understand, I say!” the voice shouted again, now so strident that it seemed to soar into the sky, swiftly, far too swiftly, like some demented lark trying to pluck a star with its beak.

“Yessir,” a few more called out, but not many, and those who did were also tired, hoarse, listless, and nothing in this man’s voice could quench their thirst, satisfy their hunger, their craving for a cigarette.

The colonel lashed the air furiously with his cane, they heard something that sounded like “rabble,” and he strode rapidly off to the rear, followed by his adjutant, a tall young first lieutenant, who was much too tall, and much too young, for them not to feel sorry for him.

The sun still hung over the horizon, just above the rooftops, a glowing iron egg that seemed to be rolling down over the flat white roofs, and the sky was burned gray, almost white; the sparse leaves hung limply from the trees as they marched on, eastward now at last, through the suburbs, past shacks, over cobbles, past the huts of rag-and-bone men, past a totally incongruous group of modern, dirty apartment blocks, past garbage dumps, through gardens where rotting melons lay on the ground and overripe tomatoes hung from tall stalks, covered with dust, stalks that were much too tall and had an unfamiliar look about them. The cornfields looked odd too, with their thick corncobs being pecked at by flocks of black birds that flew up lethargically at the approach of the men’s weary tread, clouds of birds that hovered undecidedly in the air, then settled down to resume their pecking.

Now there were only three times thirty-five men, a weary, dust-coated platoon, with sore feet and sweating faces, led by a first lieutenant
whose face plainly showed that he was fed to the teeth. As soon as he took command, they knew what kind of man he was. All he had done was look at them and, tired as they were, and thirsty, thirsty, they could read it in his eyes. “It’s a lot of shit,” said his expression, “just a lot of shit, but we can’t do a thing about it.” And then came his voice, with studied indifference, contemptuous of all regulation commands: “Let’s go.”

Next they halted at a grimy school standing among half-withered trees. The foul black puddles, with flies buzzing and darting above them, looked as if they had been standing there for months between rough cobbles and a chalk-scribbled urinal that gave out a nauseating stench, acrid and unmistakable.

“Halt,” said the first lieutenant. He went into the schoolhouse, and his walk, elegant and languid, was that of a man who was fed to the teeth.

This time there was no need to form a hollow square, and the captain who walked past them did not even salute; he wore no belt, a straw was stuck between his teeth, and from the look of his plump face with its black eyebrows he appeared to be easygoing. He merely nodded, went “Hm,” stopped in front of them, and said: “We haven’t got much time, boys. I’ll send along the sergeant major and have you assigned to your companies right away.” But they had already looked past his round healthy face and seen the ammunitions trucks standing ready loaded, and on the ledges of the soiled open windows lay piles of battle packs, neat olive-drab bundles, beside them the belts and the rest of the gear, haversacks, cartridge pouches, spades, gas masks.

When they set off they were only eight times three men, and they marched back through the cornfields as far as the ugly modern apartment blocks, then turned east again until they reached the sparse woods in the midst of which stood a few houses that looked something like an artist’s colony: flat-roofed bungalow affairs with picture windows. There were wicker chairs in the gardens, and when the men halted and about-faced they saw that the sun was behind the roofs now, that its glow filled the whole dome of the sky with a red that was just a shade too pale, like badly painted blood—and behind them, in the east, it was already deep twilight and warm. Soldiers were squatting in the shadow outside the bungalows, there were some rifle-pyramids, ten or so, and they noticed that the men had already buckled on their belts: the steel helmets hooked to their belts shone with a ruddy gleam.

The first lieutenant, coming out now from one of the bungalows, did not walk past them at all. He stopped at once in front of them, and they saw he had only one decoration, a little black one that wasn’t really a decoration at all, an insignificant medal stamped out of black tin, a sign that he had shed blood for the Fatherland. The lieutenant’s face was tired and sad, and now when he looked at them he looked first at their decorations, then into their faces, and said, “Good,” and after a brief pause, with a glance at his watch, “You’re tired, I realize that, but it can’t be helped—we have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

Then he looked at the sergeant major beside him and said, “No point in taking down particulars—just collect the paybooks and put them in with the baggage. Assign the men quickly so they’ve time for a drink of water. And don’t forget to fill up your canteens while you’re about it!” he called to the three times eight men.

The sergeant major standing beside him looked irritable and conceited. He had four times as many decorations as the lieutenant, and with a nod he shouted, “Come on now, let’s have those paybooks!”

He placed the pile on a wobbly garden table and began sorting them, and while the paybooks were being counted and divided up the men all had the same thought: the journey had been tiring, a bloody bore, but it hadn’t been serious. And the general, the colonel, the captain, even the first lieutenant, were all far away, they couldn’t do anything to them now. But these fellows here, they owned them, this sergeant major who saluted and clicked his heels the way they all used to four years ago, and that bull of a sergeant who at this point emerged from the rear, threw away his cigarette, and adjusted his belt—these were the fellows who owned them, until they were captured or lay around somewhere wounded—or dead.

Of the thousand men only one was left, and he stood facing the sergeant major, looking helplessly around because there was no one beside, behind, or in front of him; and when he looked at the sergeant major again he realized he was thirsty, very thirsty, and that of those fifteen minutes at least eight had already gone by.

The sergeant major had picked up his paybook from the table and opened it; he looked at the first page, raised his eyes, and asked, “Feinhals?”

“Yessir.”

“And you’re an architect—you can draw?”

“Yessir.”

“Headquarters platoon, we can use him, sir,” said the sergeant major, turning to the first lieutenant.

“Good,” said the first lieutenant, looking over toward the city, and Feinhals followed his gaze, and now he could see what was evidently fascinating the officer: the sun was lying on the ground, at the end of a street, between two houses; it looked very odd, just lying there on the ground like a flattened, shining apple between two dirty Rumanian houses at the edge of town, an apple growing dimmer by the second, almost as if lying in its own shadow.

“Good,” repeated the first lieutenant, and Feinhals didn’t know whether he really meant the sun or was just saying the word mechanically. It occurred to Feinhals that he had been on the move for four years now, and four years ago the postcard had said he was being called up for a few weeks’ maneuvers. But suddenly the war had started.

“Go and get yourself a drink,” the sergeant major told Feinhals. Feinhals ran over to join the others and found the water supply right away: a rusted iron pipe with a leaky garden faucet among some scrawny pine trees, and the water ran out in a stream no thicker than half the size of a little finger, but even worse was the fact that about ten men were standing there, shoving, cursing, and pushing away each other’s mess bowls.

The sight of the trickling water drove Feinhals almost frantic. He grabbed the mess bowl from his haversack, forced his way through the others, and suddenly felt a surge of boundless strength. He squeezed his mess bowl in between the others, between all those shifting metal apertures, no longer knowing which was his; his eyes followed his arm, saw that his was the one with the darker enamel; he thrust it forward, and felt something that made him tremble: it was getting heavy. He was past knowing which was more wonderful: to drink, or to feel his mess bowl getting heavier. Suddenly, feeling his hands lose their strength, he jerked it back, his very veins trembling with weakness, and while behind him voices shouted, “Fall in—let’s go!” he sat down, held the mess bowl between his knees because he lacked the strength to lift it, and bent over it like a dog over its bowl, his shaking fingers pressing it gently down so that the lower edge dipped and the water level touched his lips, and when he actually felt his upper lip getting wet and he began to sip, the
word danced before his eyes in a kaleidoscope of colors, “Water, terwa, aterw,” with insane clarity he saw it written in his mind’s eye: water. Strength flowed back into his hands, he could lift the bowl and drink.