The Cross of Iron (35 page)

‘There’s a regulation against that,’ the sergeant replied quickly. He thought for a moment.

‘We could put him upstairs,’ the nurse said with sudden eagerness.

The sergeant looked at her. ‘You mean upstairs?’

She nodded. He hesitated. 1 hen he turned to Steiner again. We do have one room for special people, but it’s on the third floor.’

Steiner scrutinized his face and then the nurse's. For special people?’ he asked. Then he noticed the nurse blushing and grinned. ‘I’ll take it. I don’t suppose you have a lift?’

The sergeant laughed. ‘The servants didn’t have it as cushy as that. You see,’ he went on conversationally, ‘the house used to be the summer residence of some Russian government big noise. The upper rooms were for the servants. We’ll get that room ready now. You can wait on the bench there. We won’t be long.’ He pointed to a white bench under the trees. Then he beckoned to the nurse and went back inside. Steiner slung his pack from his back, unbuttoned the camouflage jacket and dropped on to the bench with a sigh. He looked out over the sea. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, lay Turkey, Syria, Arabia and the Indian Ocean: the great wide world, adventure and distance, the islands and dreams of youth, longing and its fulfilment. He looked at the white beading of the surf. There was an almost unnatural silence here, broken only by the rhythmic slapping of the waves. Eyes half-closed, he let the song of the sea lull him. Pleasantly weary, he felt grateful now for the warmth of the cloudless April day. Now and then a cool breeze wafted across the water; then the pines would be stirred out of their immobility and their shadows would dance across the gardens.

He completely forgot where he was. When he heard a voice in his ear, it took him a while to recover awareness of his surroundings. The nurse was standing at the door, her face under its white cap turned toward him. He stood up slowly, picked up his pack and walked toward her. ‘Had you fallen asleep?’ she asked.

‘No, but I was pretty close to it. The room’s done already?’

‘Yes. You’ll like the room.’ As they mounted the stairs side by side she talked steadily. ‘You’re really in luck. The other NCOs are two or three to a room. This is the first time anyone has arrived here so irregularly. Incidentally, your room is right next to mine.’

He glanced at her face out of the corner of his eye and said: ‘I hope you don’t snore. I’m very sensitive to noise.’

They had reached the third floor. She went up to one of the many doors. ‘This is it,’ she said, letting him go ahead of her. On the threshold he paused for a moment and studied the room. At the left stood the bed, its head beneath the large casement windows. In the centre of the room stood a small table and two chairs. The right wall was taken up by a wide couch with several cutely arranged cushions. Steiner turned and saw the nurse’s face close behind him. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked. He nodded, went over to the table and laid his pack on it. Then he stepped to the window and looked out. ‘You can see the sunset every evening from here,’ she said, still right behind him.

As he turned to face her, he found his arm brushing her breast. He wrinkled his brow and asked: ‘Can the sunset be seen from your room, too?’

‘Of course.’ She laughed. ‘I told you mine is right next to yours.’ ‘That’s good,’ he said coldly. ‘It would be a bother if you had to watch your sunset from here.’

As he slipped off the camouflage jacket, the nurse glared at him. Her face was hot and her voice trembled as she said: ‘There are lots of other rooms in this building.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Steiner said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew them all. Where’s the roster here?’

She was already on her way to the door. In the doorway she turned and looked at him with fury. ‘We don’t have any roster and we don’t have ranks here, either; we have a house schedule and guests are supposed to follow it. It’s posted here.’ She angrily indicated a printed card on the wall and went out, slamming the door behind her. Steiner grinned. Then he went over to the schedule and studied it carefully. From one to three was a rest period. That explained the peculiar quiet in the building in which, he guessed, seventy or eighty men must be housed. Supper was served in the dining-room at half-past six. He looked at his watch. It was not yet half-past three and he decided to take a swim. After stowing away his belongings, he left the room and strolled slowly down to the beach. There he undressed and dived in. With vigorous strokes he swam to a rock that rose out of the waves about 150 feet from the beach. From the top of it there was a good view in all directions. The coastline was full of indentations, and the shifting surf lined the beach like a silvery girdle. The town itself stretched in a single line for about half a mile. From his perch on the rock the sharp slopes of the mountain seemed to loom directly over the houses, threatening the safety of the town.

Steiner was absorbed in the view when he heard a loud call. He looked down and saw a man thrashing the water energetically. He reached the rock at last and climbed up, panting and shaking himself like a wet poodle. ‘Well, my friend,’ he said. ‘This is the life.’ He beat the water out of his red bathing trunks, brushed it out of his blanched blond hair, and finally settled down on the rock close to Steiner. His body was on the puny side, but he had a good head with blue, cheerful eyes and rosy cheeks. ‘Wonderful!’ he went on talking gaily. ‘Couldn’t be better. The upper crust of the socialist worker’s state certainly knew how to appreciate the good things of life. Don’t you think?’

‘They would have had to be idiots not to.’

The blond boy nodded. ‘They would! Where are you staying? I haven’t seen you before.’

‘Just arrived an hour ago,’ Steiner said.

‘Has a new shipment come?’ the boy asked in surprise.

‘No, I came alone.’

‘Oh. Well where are you staying?’ He made no attempt to conceal his frank curiosity.

Steiner pointed to the Division Rest Home.

‘A lousy place,’ the towheaded fellow said contemptuously. ‘A fine front and nothing behind it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Steiner asked. ‘There are at least seventy troops staying there.’

‘I don’t mean the men. You ought to come over to our diggings. Six houses down the street. Not such an elegant building, but we’ve got a canteen that’s first class.’

‘Is that so ?’ This boy talked a little too much and he wanted to be left alone. To get rid of him he nodded and said: ‘Perhaps I’ll drop in tonight.’

The boy slapped him on the back. ‘Fine. Don’t forget. By the way’—he leaned confidentially closer to Steiner—‘we have some women there who are really worth seeing. Especially two of them. There’s one of them wears her breasts as I would wear the Iron Cross.’

‘Women?’ Steiner queried.

‘Yes, the nurses. High class, let me tell you. Swell girls. They come to all our parties.’

‘All?’

‘You can go the limit with them. Only the one with big breasts is reserved for Lieutenant Mannheim, the paymaster. Nobody else gets a chance at her.’ He sighed and gazed gloomily over the water. ‘It’s always the same; if there’s anyone around with a pip on his shoulder, we don’t get a look in.’

His chagrin seemed so genuine that Steiner smiled. ‘If so, you aren’t missing much,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I’d sooner have a decent glass of wine or beer than a dozen of these illegal whores.’

‘Whores?’ the blond chap protested indignantly. ‘They’re not whores. When you see Gertrud you’ll change your mind.’

‘Don’t go on about it,’ Steiner replied irritably. ‘I’ll take a look at your canteen tonight. If I needed women I wouldn’t have to go six houses down the street.’ He nodded good-bye, dropped into the water and swam back to the beach. As he dressed he wondered whether he had been too sharp with the boy. Then he recalled his conversation with the nurse and grinned. That kind were the same everywhere. He’d make it up to the blond kid this evening over a bottle. After all, he should be grateful for the tip about the canteen. As he thought of it, his mouth watered. It was a long time since he had last tasted beer. He frowned. Had the blond chap said anything about beer ? He couldn’t recall, and shrugged impatiently. He would see; a canteen without beer was no canteen.

The swim had wonderfully refreshed him, and the act of having rid himself of the dirt of the road seemed to bring back the mood of bygone Saturday nights, when, still a civilian, he had washed and shaved and gone out. As he approached the house he saw several men talking in loud voices. They were standing by the door; when they caught sight of him they fell silent and studied him with curiosity. For a few seconds he was undecided whether to join them or not. Then they apparently recognized his rank, and their faces set. He went on past them, answering their salutes with a brief nod. When he reached his room he lay down and promptly fell asleep.

It was already dark when he awoke. He lay for a while staring up at the ceiling with eyes half shut. He began thinking about the nurse, and regretted having told her off so roughly. Cursing under his breath, he got up, combed his hair and slipped into his tunic. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was high time for supper. He hurried downstairs. The dining-hall was a long, lofty room. Three rows of tables took up nearly half of it. Most of the chairs were already occupied and Steiner had difficulty finding a seat in the further corner of the room. He squeezed in between chairs and noticed that the men stared curiously at him, then put their heads together and whispered. When he started to sit down, someone said: ‘You’ll be served up front; this section is for privates.’

‘Then this is where I belong,’ Steiner said, sitting down beside the man who had spoken. The soldier looked at him in astonishment. Then he grinned and resumed eating. The faces of the other men brightened and they moved closer together so that he had more room. Since the place in front of him was not set, Steiner looked around. The food was being served in big bowls. Steiner waited until one of the nurses approached and asked her for a plate and cutlery. She shook her head and pointed to the other end of the table. ‘You’ll have to go up there. That’s where sergeants and corporals are served.’

‘As you see, I am a master sergeant,’ Steiner said sharply. ‘Bring me a plate or I’ll get one for myself.’

Their interest piqued, the men all raised their heads. The nurse set her bowl down on the table, her pretty face flushing with temper. ‘If you want to change the regulations,’ she said defiantly, ‘tell Sergeant Maier, not me.’ She started to turn away, but Steiner held her by the arm. There was a sudden silence in the room. The clatter of spoons stopped and all eyes turned inquisitively toward him. Steiner looked down the table and caught sight of the leathery-faced sergeant, who sat at the other end of the table, with a half-dozen NCOs, staring hard at him. Steiner raised his voice. ‘In the first place I don’t like your tone, miss, and in the second place I don’t intend to be told where I have to sit to choke down your dehydrated rations. Now bring me a plate.’

Helplessly the nurse turned her head toward the NCOs’ table. The sergeant stood up and strode rapidly toward them. ‘There are regulations here,’ he said angrily, ‘and even a master sergeant has to obey them. You sit up front with us. No one gets special treatment, understand?’

Steiner took a deep breath. He released the nurse’s arm. ‘What regulations say I must?’ he asked quietly.

‘There’s a copy of them hanging in your room,’ the leatherskinned sergeant replied curtly.

‘In all the rooms?’

‘Of course.’

‘Really.’ Steiner tapped one of the men in front of him on the shoulder. ‘Bring me the regulations from your room.’

The man stood up and hurried to the door. ‘I’m not out for special treatment,’ Steiner declared coolly. ‘This is a matter of principle and we’re going to settle it right now.’

Hie sergeant’s voice was thick with rage. ‘You’ll find out soon enough what it’s a matter of. Don’t think you can play the big shot here.’

‘That’s a part that suits you a lot better than it does me,’ Steiner replied coldly. The scene disgusted him, but on the other hand he did not want to give in now. He looked over toward the door where the man was returning. He made a wide circle around Leatherskin and came over to Steiner. ‘Here it is, sir,’ he said.

‘Thank you very much,’ Steiner said, taking the printed card from his hand. He looked the regulations over again and noted with satisfaction that he had not been mistaken. The sergeant regarded him darkly. When Steiner passed the copy of the regulations to him he looked up and asked: ‘Well?’

Steiner smiled scornfully. ‘Do you think I’m an illiterate?’ The smile vanished abruptly. He glanced briefly at the men, who were listening in eager suspense. ‘There’s not a word here about NCOs having to eat separately. Is there?’

‘That’s taken for granted,’ Leatherskin replied violently. ‘It doesn’t have to be specifically mentioned.’

Steiner frowned. ‘There’s only one thing I’d take for granted: that the enlisted men here are being diddled with unwritten as well as written rubbish. I came here to rest up, not to be reminded of the barracks and the drill-ground.’ He snatched the card from the speechless sergeant’s hand and slapped it down on the table. ‘You can just pull in your horns. If I am not served right here tomorrow morning, I’ll see that I get my rations elsewhere.’ He strode through a wall of icy silence to the door. As he passed by one of the windows outside, he saw that everyone in the dining-hall was still sitting motionless and silent. His appetite was thoroughly ruined by now, so he fetched his cap from his room and left the building.

He counted the houses on the left side of the street. The sixth house lay in the midst of large grounds. The building was hidden far back among the trees. He went up a paved walk toward the brightness of its windows. On the threshold of the open door he collided with a fellow who was hurrying out, and at once recognized the tow-headed boy of his afternoon acquaintance. He gripped his arm roughly and announced himself. ‘Well, here I am.’

The boy stared at him incredulously. Steiner laughed. ‘What’s the matter? Have you forgotten me already?’