The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (89 page)

“I left it with the watchmaker in Bechencourt—didn’t I tell you? It’ll be Monday before I can give it to you.”

“Oh, you might’ve told me. So I s’pose I’ll have to pay for the repair, won’t I?”

The sentry laughed. “Of course, then you’ll have a good watch for twenty-five cigarettes and a few francs—cheap, eh?”

“But we made a deal, and—and are you sure, Monday? Or d’you think …?”

“No, Monday for sure.”

The sentry was obsessed with the single thought that it was only a quarter to three. Not even an hour, not even half the time, had gone by! A profound bitterness welled up in him, hatred and rage, a dark fear and, at the same time, despair. All this seemed to choke him, his throat felt bitter and hot and horribly dry, as if from violently suppressed tears.

“Be seeing you,” he said in a forced voice as he turned away. He was about to ask the time again, but it was so pointless, it couldn’t possibly be more than ten minutes to three.

The street, which he walked along so often during the day and again in the evening to fetch rations—during the day this little bit of street seemed absurdly short and pitiful; now at night it had acquired a mysterious length and breadth. Even the dirty, shabby houses opposite the château grounds were more impressive in the dark. But all he could feel was that desperate bitterness that was almost strangling him. Not even the thought of the cigarettes in his pocket was any comfort, nor was the knowledge that the awkward business of the watch had been postponed for at least two days. He was miserably cold and hungry—a naked, nagging hunger. He put his hands in his pockets, but they were so hopelessly numb that even in there they refused to come to life. His steel helmet suddenly weighed on him like a lump of lead, and at that moment he felt convinced that everything, everything, hatred and torment and despair, was contained in that steel helmet, in that heavy lump on his forehead. He took it off, then stepped into Monsieur Dubuc’s gateway, just opposite the entrance to the château.

Now that he was rid of the pressure of the helmet he felt almost light-headed, and unconsciously he was smiling, a gentle, benign smile. He thought: now it
must
be three o’clock! And once the first half had gone by, time passed more quickly: the half-way mark was the ridge that had to be climbed, after that it was downhill all the way. He pictured Marianne’s face while closing his eyes, making it appear so close and vivid that he could smell her hair. There would be some mail from her again, he would see her handwriting …

Time flowed, flowed, he could sense it, at breakneck speed it was approaching four o’clock. To sleep, to sleep and dream till six! The thought of tomorrow’s duty checked him for a moment like a horse at a hurdle, but then, suddenly, for the first time that night, he heard the striking of the village clock: four strokes and three strokes, relentlessly. Three o’clock! Only three o’clock!

The shock made him duck like a beaten animal; he cringed as if from a cruel blow, gave a groan of animal despair, tried without conviction to kid himself that he’d miscounted. His bare head suddenly felt ice-cold and painful. He jammed on his steel helmet, lit a cigarette,
and in feverish haste, inhaling deeply, smoked two cigarettes, one after another, slavering with hatred, rage and despair.

He even forgot to save up the two butts, flicking them brusquely into the street …

After that, when he walked across to Willi it was eight minutes past three; the next time—it seemed like an eternity of inner torment—it was eleven minutes past three. Those three minutes had been an eternity! Yes, he was done for, that was it; it was all futile. It would never be four o’clock, he would never reach the fourth hour alive, he would be crushed by the hideous millstones of naked time. All comfort and hope had sunk out of sight; not even memory could conjure them up now. There remained nothing but the naked torture of time and the prospect of going on four hours’ duty the next day, suffering from hunger and lack of sleep, with the hung-over lieutenant. Rifle drill, about-turn, rifle drill, about-turn, field training, rifle drill, target practice, singing, singing, singing! Four hours: an endless chain of murderous seconds. Four hours! And these two were not even over yet. Time was a cheat, that was it! It cheated him, it destroyed every hope. Two hours! Four hours! Parade-ground duty and sentry duty, hopelessly clamped in this vice! Singing! Singing! Singing songs to satisfy the hung-over lieutenant’s sentimental nature.

From the knotted tangle of rage, despair and hatred, hatred now emerged isolated and pure. He embraced that hatred and nursed it; he nurtured it with spiteful phrases about the lieutenant, the pissing captain, and the NCOs. With a ghastly smile he lit his fifth cigarette, standing once again in Madame Sevry’s doorway, and looked along the street.

Now he could release that hatred, he no longer needed to nurse and nurture it; it was strong enough to work away independently inside him.

From the sea came a faint wind, damp and cool, that prompted unusual sounds: the groaning of fresh-leaved trees, the creaking of rotting roof-timbers, and the rattle of old, warped doors.

And all at once he knew that time really had passed swiftly; he was not surprised to hear the clock strike a quarter to four.

He hurried back through the avenue and entered the guard-room to rouse his relief. Waking a man is an art, he thought, a soldier’s sleep is something sacred, which is why it is kicked around by everyone:
hardly anyone knows how to rouse a soldier from his sleep, the sleep, that costs nothing but is so indescribably precious.

He groped his way across the room and cautiously woke the sentry, not too tentatively and not too brutally—in such a way that the man was immediately awake yet not torn ruthlessly from the profound bliss of sleep. He shook the sentry a few times gently but firmly, and a resigned voice mumbled, “All right, I’m coming.”

Pity overwhelmed him; they were all, all of them, clamped into this senseless, cruel system. He waited outside at the entrance to the avenue; he no longer felt cold or hungry, hardly even tired, now that he was sure of his bed.

But suddenly he heard footsteps coming from the church square, strange footsteps, groans, and little yelps of suppressed lust. The staggering was so palpable in the darkness that he could picture the lieutenant, weaving from side to side, sometimes walking briskly, then lurching again. Yvette must have regaled him nicely with her phony liqueurs! Now he was turning into the village street … For ten paces the lieutenant walked almost normally, humming to himself, then staggered again; and then—then the sentry saw the glowing tip of his cigarette.

Shoot him, shoot him! he thought, and scarcely had the words entered his mind than he released the safety catch of his rifle and aimed it, leaning his left hand on the gatepost and pushing the barrel across it. He was ice-cold and alert, tense with the glorious game of aiming at the lieutenant. And after taking precise aim at the glowing cigarette, he called, keeping his voice down: “Password—who goes there?” He followed the approaching figure with his rifle, and when the voice called back “Vive la France!” he was transfixed by a terrible, savage emotion known only to gamblers who suddenly and compulsively bet everything on a single card: he pressed the trigger. And in the billionth of a second between pressure and discharge, everything within him that was still human, all of it, longed for the bullet to miss, but a sickening, brief, gurgling sound told him otherwise. He was standing there rigid and motionless when the relief sentry grabbed his arm and asked in a scared voice, “What happened?”

“Vive la France,” he merely replied and, with chalk-white face and trembling hands, leaned his rifle against the gatepost.

At the point where, half an hour earlier, the dust cloud of the attackers had been, there was now the dust cloud of fleeing men. The dusty haze was drifting over the shimmering steppe towards the military police, confusing them and increasing their fury. Raising their machine pistols they roared: “Stop, you bastards—stop—back to your positions!”

The air was filled with the screams of wounded men left lying on the ground, the shouts of the Russians—a hoarse, frightened barking, and the cries of fleeing men: like a herd of wild horses scenting an obstruction, they halted when confronted by the barrels of the machine pistols, then turned in weary submission and went back.

From behind me I could hear the shouts of the officers as they grouped their men for a new thrust. I could hear the rumbling of tanks, the howling of shells, and still the screams of the badly wounded. Slowly and with a feeling of extraordinary happiness I walked towards the line of military police. They couldn’t touch me, I’d been wounded, although there was nothing to show for it in front.

“Stop!” they shouted. “Get back there, you bastard!”

“I’ve been wounded!” I yelled at them. With suspicious looks they let me approach. I went up to a tense, infuriated lieutenant, turned round and showed him my back. It must have been a pretty big hole, I’d run my hand over it once: damp, sticky blood and shreds of cloth. But I could feel nothing, it was a superb wound, a wound made to order, they couldn’t touch me. Actually it must have looked worse than it was. The lieutenant growled something, then said more calmly: “There’s a doctor over there.”

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.