The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (84 page)

He grabbed his rifle, combat pack, and two boxes of ammunition, and stepped into the bushes after hearing the order from up front: “Get off the road!” It was wet in the bushes, some of the men were smoking, and he fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He saw everything and heard everything, yet he heard and saw nothing: the sky was grey all over, without a single dark or light speck, and it must be about five in the afternoon. The soldiers hunkered down on their boxes; some of them were stamping around, but they soon gave up because the ground was too soft and wet, so wet that it splashed when they stamped on it.

Nothing much was said. Somewhere the NCOs were gathered round the lieutenant, and on the path leading into the forest a captain appeared with a list. He was a young captain who for some reason snapped at the lieutenant, and the lieutenant stood to attention. The
noise of machine guns started up again: the gunner couldn’t have been lying more than ten yards away. Then came the sound of quite a different machine gun, and he knew that that rough, slower, throaty sound must come from the Russian machine guns. For a moment he felt his terrible indifference shot through with something like excitement. The captain in his muddy boots with his incredibly young face was now talking urgently to the lieutenant and the NCOs.

He threw away his cigarette and turned to the man nearest to him. It was cold; he looked at him, and it was some time before he realized that it was Karl—Karl, that quiet, inconspicuous fellow who hadn’t had much to say on the journey, an older man wearing a wedding ring who had always seemed a pillar of respectability.

“Karl,” he said in a low voice.

“What is it?” Karl answered quietly.

“Got anything to drink?” Karl nodded and fumbled at the canteen hanging from his belt.

He groped for the stopper with one hand, unscrewed it, and lifted the canteen to his mouth, and when the first gulp ran down his throat he was suddenly aware of having a hellish thirst. He groaned with pleasure and drank deeply.

Suddenly their corporal shouted “Fall in!” and Karl hurriedly snatched back his canteen and hooked it on again. All the sections were being called by their corporals, assembled on the forest path, then marched off in rows behind the captain into the forest.

All he could think of was drinking.

His thirst was barbaric: he was tempted to throw himself on the ground and drink the puddle on the path. The forest path seemed familiar. This thin, scrubby growth, these skimpy little beech trees standing far apart, and between them the brown, sodden earth; the grey, endlessly grey sky overhead, and this squelchy path. Up ahead the captain, talking earnestly to the lieutenant, and the corporals beside their sections: just like on the training ground when they used to march off for firing practice … it was all nonsense, they weren’t really in Russia, they hadn’t covered all those thousands of kilometres by train to be shot up here or to freeze to death. It was all a dream.

The firing ahead of them sounded regular and familiar: rifles and machine guns, somewhere artillery too.

Suddenly they halted. He looked up to find they were standing in front of a hut hidden in the trees beside the path. Behind it were more huts, and deeper inside the forest he could see holes in the ground, entrances to dug-outs hung with blankets and telephone cables, and somewhere in a dilapidated shed stood a field kitchen. Once again they had to leave the path and step under the scrawny little trees. Troopers emerged from the dug-outs, and some corporals and another lieutenant. They seemed quite unconcerned, and he thought: so it’s not Russia after all. Everything was so terribly normal. The trooper who joined them had a machine pistol slung over one shoulder and a pipe stuck in his grey face. He had always imagined that, when they reached the front, the real front, they would be looked at with contempt as being greenhorns. But no one looked contemptuously at them; in fact they seemed rather indifferent, if anything a bit sorry for them.

What a marvellous war-game they’re having here, he thought. Everything’s so incredibly real, I hope the shooting’s real too and they’ll shoot me dead. His nausea had not subsided; his head ached, and a sour, horrible sick feeling rose from his stomach into his head and seemed to fill all his veins and nerves. He took deep breaths—the fresh air felt good for at least a tenth of a second. They’re playing a damn convincing game, he thought, as the trooper who had joined them walked right up to the corporal and said: “To the third.”

“Yessir!” replied the corporal, and the trooper gave him an odd look. “Okay, let’s go,” said the trooper, and he marched off into the forest, followed by the corporal and the men in single file.

Carrying his ammunition box, he was the last but one. He staggered along behind the man in front of him, through that sparse beech wood, feeling miserably cold, sick to his stomach …

Suddenly their guide, the trooper, threw himself on the ground shouting “Take cover!” and at that very moment some shells burst in front of them. It couldn’t be far away: he heard a sickening soft rustling, a rush of wind, then the crash, and one of the little beech trees snapped right off and fell over. He could clearly see a slender tree trunk bursting twenty yards away and slowly toppling over, revealing its white, greenish-white, core at the place of impact. Clods of earth rained down, some of them splattering the ground close by. It was wonderful to be lying on the ground. Although he knew very well that this was for real,
that they were in Russia, actually in Russia, and almost right up at the very front, all he felt was: how wonderful to be lying on the ground, full length. Although it was wet and the cold and damp quickly penetrated his greatcoat, he simply didn’t care.

Dear God, he prayed, let the next shell land right on top of me … But the trooper was back on his feet, shouting “Let’s go!” On they marched and soon they reached the edge of the forest. The trooper waited until they were all there and then explained something to them. He could hear it all quite distinctly, but he couldn’t have cared less about any of it; never in his life had he felt so utterly indifferent. Moreover, by this time he was so cold that his teeth were chattering. Before them was a big field, all torn up, and on it a burned-out tank with a Soviet star painted on its side. On either side of the tank were emplacements. It looked exactly like the training area. Proper trenches and dug-out mounds, and he saw which machine gun was firing—it seemed to sound much farther away than it had a while ago when they had been in the lorry. And the machine gun was firing at the remains of a house standing at the end of the field: he saw the impacts, saw the mud spray up from the ruined walls, and from an entirely different direction a throaty-sounding, slower machine gun was now firing at the edge of the forest just where they were standing. The trooper, their leader, threw himself on the ground again, and they didn’t wait for him to shout “Take cover!” for one of them had been hit and lay there screaming, screaming horribly, and the machine gun went on firing.

He was about to slide over to his mate, realizing from the voice that it was Willi, but two men were already lying on their stomachs beside Willi, bandaging one leg. He distinctly heard one of the bullets smash into a tender young sapling. A few ricochet bullets buzzed into the void like demented bees.

When he saw the others cautiously crawling backwards, he did the same, although his fatigue and nausea made everything swim before his eyes. It was exhausting work, pushing oneself backwards, and the machine gun was now sawing right above their heads; it was horrifying the way the bullets were slapping into the forest floor behind them or into the soft wood, revealing the young, greenish-white wounds. And then another shell burst, then several more; everything was reduced to noise and a horrible stench, and again a man screamed, then another.
He didn’t know who was screaming, all he wanted was to sleep; he closed his eyes and screamed, went on screaming without knowing that he was screaming, until God granted his wish …

He arrived one night with the ration runners as a replacement for Gornizek, who lay wounded at battalion headquarters. Those nights were very dark, and fear hung like a thunder cloud over the alien, pitch-black earth. I was up front at a listening post, keeping my eyes and ears open towards the rear, from where the sounds of the ration runners came, just as much as towards the front, towards the dark silence on the Russian side.

It was Gerhard who brought him along, together with my mess-tin and cigarettes.

“D’you want the bread, too?” Gerhard asked, “or shall I keep it for you till tomorrow morning?” I could tell from his voice that he was in a hurry to get back.

“No,” I said, “give me the lot, it’ll be eaten up right away.”

He handed me the bread and the tinned meat in a piece of wax paper, the roll of fruit-drops and some mixed butter and lard on a scrap of cardboard.

All this time the newcomer had been standing there trembling and silent. “And here,” said Gerhard, “is the replacement for Gornizek. The lieutenant has sent him out to you, to the listening post.”

“Yes,” was all I said; it was customary to send newcomers to the most difficult posts. Gerhard crawled back to the rear.

“Come on down,” I said quietly. “Not so much noise, for God’s sake!” He was making a stupid racket with the stuff hanging from his belt, his spade and gas mask; he stepped clumsily into the hole and almost knocked over my mess-tin. “Idiot,” I muttered as I made room for him. I heard rather than saw how he proceeded to unbuckle his belt, place the spade to one side, his gas mask beside it, and his rifle up onto the parapet, pointing at the enemy, and then buckle on his belt again, all strictly according to regulations.

The bean soup was cold by this time, and it was just as well that in the dark I couldn’t see all the grubs that must have been boiled out of
the beans. There was plenty of meat in the soup, delicious crisp brown bits. Next I ate up the tinned meat from the wax paper and stuffed the bread into the empty mess-tin. He stood perfectly silent beside me, always facing the enemy, and in the blackness of the night I could see a snub-nosed profile. When he turned aside, I could tell from his narrow cheeks that he was still young; his steel helmet looked almost like the shell of a tortoise. These boys had a special something about their cheeks that recalled playing soldiers on a suburban common. “My Redskin brother,” they always seemed to be saying, and their lips trembled with fear, and their hearts were stiff with courage. Those poor kids …

“You might as well sit down,” I said in that painstakingly acquired voice that is easily intelligible but scarcely audible a yard away. “Here,” I added, pulling at the hem of his greatcoat and almost forcing him down into the hollowed-out seat. “You can’t possibly stand all the time.”

“But on sentry duty …” came a feeble voice that cracked like that of a sentimental tenor.

“Shut up!” I hissed at him.

“But on sentry duty,” he whispered, “we’re not permitted to sit!”

“Nothing’s permitted, not even starting a war.”

Although I could see him only in outline, I knew that he was now sitting like a pupil in class, hands on knees, bolt upright and ready to jump up any second. I bent forward, drew my greatcoat right over the back of my head, and lit my pipe.

“Want a smoke?”

“No.” I was surprised how quickly he had learned to whisper.

“Well, anyway,” I said, “have a drink instead.”

“No,” he repeated, but I grabbed his head and held the neck of the flask to his mouth; as patient as a calf with its first bottle, he swallowed a few times, then made such a violent gesture of disgust that I took away the flask.

“Don’t you like it?”

“I do,” he stammered, “but I choked.”

“Then drink it yourself.”

He took the flask out of my hand and swallowed a good gulp.

“Thanks,” he murmured. I had a drink, too.

“Feeling better now?”

“Yes—much.”

“Not quite so scared, eh?”

He was ashamed to admit that he was scared at all, but they were all like that.

“I’m scared, too,” I said, “all the time, that’s why I find courage in a bottle.”

I felt him jerk towards me, and I leaned over to see his face. All I could see was the bright glint of his eyes, eyes that looked dangerous, and shadowy dark outlines, but I could smell him. He smelled of army stores, of sweat, storeroom, and leftover soup, and slightly of the schnapps. There was no sound at all; behind us they seemed to have finished doling out the rations. He turned back towards the enemy.

“Is this your first time out?”

Again he was ashamed, I could tell, but he answered: “Yes.”

“How long have you been a soldier?”

“Eight weeks.”

“And where are you from?”

“From St Avold.”

“Where?”

“St Avold. Lorraine, you know …”

“A long trip?”

“Two weeks.”

We fell silent, and I tried to peer through the impenetrable darkness ahead. Oh, if only daylight would come, I thought, if one could at least see something, daybreak at least, some fog maybe—see something, see anything, a scrap of light … but when daylight came I would be wishing that it was dark. If only dusk would fall, or fog would roll in suddenly. It was always the same …

Up front there was nothing. Off in the distance, the gentle throbbing of engines. The Russians were being fed, too. Then came the sound of a twittering Russian voice that was abruptly suppressed, as if a hand had been clapped over a mouth. It was nothing …

“Do you know what our job is?” I asked him. How good it felt not to be alone any more! How wonderful to feel the breath of a human being, to be aware of his stale smell—a human being who was not about to finish one off the very next second!

“Yes,” he said, “listening post.” Again I was surprised how well he could whisper, almost better than I could. It seemed so effortless. For
me it was always an effort, I always wanted to shout, yell, call out, so that the night would collapse like black foam; for me it was a terrible effort, that whispering.

“Fine,” I said, “listening post. So we have to be on the look-out for when the Russians come, when they attack. Then we send up a red flare, bang away with our rifles for a bit, and scram, to the rear—got it? But when only a few come, a recce patrol, then we have to keep quiet, let them through, and one of us has to go back and tell the others, tell the lieutenant—you’ve been in his dug-out, haven’t you?”