The Road Back (34 page)

He pushes back his chair. "Man! Why, you're a Bol
shevik, I declare!—It was our duty! Orders! What——" Thoroughly offended he wraps up his scoring book in its tissue paper and puts it back in the drawer again.

I pacify him with a good cigar. He takes a few puffs and is reconciled. Then begins to tell me about his rifle club that meets every Saturday. "We had a ball there just a while back. Classy, I tell you! And next time it's to be skittles, with prizes. You must come along sometimes, Ernst; you can get a beer at the bar, the like as I've rarely tasted, so smooth—And a penny a pint cheaper, too, than elsewhere. Mounts up, that does—every night, you know—It's smart and yet its cosy like, if you understand me. Here"——he points to a gilt collar-chain—"
Champion shot
. Bruno 1st. Pretty good, what?"

The child comes in. One of the boats has come unfolded. Bruno carefully sets it right again and strokes the little girl's hair. The blue ribbon crackles.

Then he takes me to a sideboard laden with every conceivable sort of object—He won them in the shooting-gallery at the annual fair. Three shots a penny, and whoever shot a certain number of rings could select his own prize. Bruno was not to be dragged from the gallery the whole day. He shot down whole heaps of teddy bears, cut-glass dishes, cups, beer mugs, coffee pots, ash trays, balls, and even two wicker armchairs.

"At the finish they wouldn't let me in anywhere," he laughs happily. "I'd have bankrupted the whole works before I'd done. Once bitten twice shy, eh?"

I go down the dark street. Light and swilling water is flooding from the doorways—Bruno will be playing again with his little girl. His wife will be bringing in the evening meal. And afterwards he will go for his beer. On Sunday he will take the family for an outing. He is an affectionate husband, a good father, a respected citizen. There is nothing to be said against him. Nothing to be said against him.

And Albert? And us?

Already an hour before the beginning of Albert's trial we are standing in the corridor of the court-house. At last the witnesses are called. With thudding heart we go in. Albert, very pale, is leaning back in his chair, gazing at the floor in front of him. We try to speak to him with our eyes: Courage, Albert! We won't leave you in the lurch. But he does not look up.

After our names have been read over we have to leave the court-room again. As we go out we discover Tjaden and Valentin sitting in the front row of the audience. They wink at us.

One after another the witnesses are called. With Willy it lasts a particularly long time. Then comes my turn. A quick glance at Valentin—an imperceptible shake of the head. So—Albert has refused to make any statement. I expected as much. He sits there vacantly beside his counsel. But Willy is red about the gills. Watchful as a wolfhound, he is eyeing the Prosecutor. The two have had a dust-up apparently.

I am sworn in. Then the President of the Court starts to interrogate. He wants to know whether Albert had not previously spoken of his intention of getting square with Bartscher. When I say No, he states that several witnesses were struck by the fact that Albert had been so cool and deliberate.

"He always is," I reply. 

"Deliberate?" interjects the Prosecutor. 

"Cool," I retort.

The President leans forward. "Even in such circumstances?"

"Of course," I say. "He was cool in far worse situations than that."

"In what worse situations?" asks the Prosecutor pointing a quick finger.

"In a bombardment."

He withdraws the finger. Willy grunts contentedly. The Prosecutor gives him an angry look.

"So he was cool then?" asks the President once again.

"As cool as now," I answer sourly. "Can't you see how coolly he sits there, though everything within him is boiling and raging!—He was a soldier! He learned there not to go hopping about and flinging up his arms to heaven in despair, merely because a situation was critical. Else he wouldn't have any now!"

The Counsel for the Defence makes some notes. The President looks at me a moment. "If that is so why did he shoot?" he asks. "Surely it was not so grievous a matter that the girl should go to the cafe with another man for once."

"It was more grievous to him than a bullet in the guts," I reply.

"How so?"

"Because the girl was the only thing he had in the world."

"He had his mother," interjects the Prosecutor.

"He could not marry his mother," I retort.

"And why was it so important he should marry?" asks the President. "Is he not much too young still?"

"He was not too young to be a soldier," I oppose. "And he wanted to marry because after the war he was lost, because he went always in fear of himself and of his memories and looked for something whereby to steady himself. And this girl was that to him."

The President turns to Albert: "Prisoner at the bar, are you now willing to answer? Is it true, what this witness has said?"

Albert delays a while. Willy and I fix him with our eyes. "Yes," he then answers reluctantly.

"And would you now tell us, why you had a revolver with you?"

Albert is silent.

"He always had it with him," I interpose.

"Always?" asks the President.

"Of course," I reply, "just the same as his handkerchief and his watch."

The President looks at me in astonishment. "But a revolver is a rather different thing from a pocket handkerchief!"

"True," I say, "he found the handkerchief less necessary. He was often without one."

"And the revolver——"

"It saved his life more than once. He has carried it for three years, and he brought the habit back with him."

"But he does not need it now! You see, it is peace time."

I shrug my shoulders. "We have not yet found it so."

The President turns to Albert. "Prisoner at the bar, do you not wish to unburden your conscience? Do you not repent what you have done?"

"No," says Albert apathetically.

All is hushed. The jury listens. The Prosecutor leans forward, Willy looks as if he would throw himself on Albert. I look at him desperately.

"But you have killed a man," says the President impressively.

"I have killed many men," answers Albert indifferently.

The Prosecutor jumps up. The juryman by the door stops biting his nails. "What have you done?" asks the President breathlessly.

"In the war," I interrupt hastily.

"That is quite another matter," declares the Prosecutor, disappointed.

Then Albert lifts his head. "How is that a different matter?"

The Prosecutor rises. "Do you mean to compare what you did here with fighting in defence of the Fatherland?"

"No," retorts Albert. "The people I shot then had done
me no injury——"

"Monstrous!" says the Prosecutor in disgust and turns
to the President. "I must implore——"

But the President is calmer. "Where should we be, if every soldier thought as you do?" says he.

"True enough," I say. "But that is not our responsibility. Had this man"—I point to Albert—"had this man not been trained to shoot men, he would not have shot one now."

The Prosecutor is as red as a turkey. "It is unheard of
that witnesses, unasked, should——"

The President overrides him.—"I think we may venture to depart for once from the usual procedure."

In the meantime I am set aside and the girl is called.

Albert huddles together and presses his lips tight. The girl is wearing a black silk dress and has had her hair newly waved. She advances self-consciously. It is apparent that she feels herself an important personage.

The judge inquires into her relationships with Albert and with Bartscher. She describes Albert as quarrelsome, Bart-scher on the other hand was an amiable man. She had never contemplated marriage with Albert; on the contrary, she was as good as engaged to Bartscher. "Herr Trosske is much too young," she explains and swings on her hips.

The sweat pours down Albert's forehead, but he does not stir. Willy is kneading his hands. We can hardly contain ourselves.

The President asks what was her relation with Albert.

"Quite harmless," she says, "we were merely acquainted."

"Was the accused excited at the time?"

"Of course," she replies enthusiastically. That appears to flatter her.

"How do you account for that?"

"Well, you see"—she smiles and turns coyly aside—"he was very much in love with me."

Willy groans aloud, hollowly. The Prosecutor fixes him through his spectacles.

"Dirty bitch!" resounds suddenly through the courtroom.

A tremendous hubbub. "Who spoke there?" asks the President.

Tjaden rises proudly.

He is awarded a fine of fifty marks for contempt of court.

"Cheap," says he, taking out his pocket-book. "Do I have to pay now?"

He gets a further fine of fifty marks and is ordered from the court.

The girl has become distinctly less brazen.

"And what passed between you and Bartscher that evening?" the President interrogates further.

"Nothing," she protests uncomfortably. "We were just sitting together."

The judge turns to Albert. "Have you anything to say?"

I bore him with my glance. "No," he says quietly.

"The statements are correct, then?"

Albert smiles bitterly, his face is grey. The girl looks fixedly at the Christ hanging on the wall above the President. "It is possible they are correct," says Albert. "I hear them today for the first time. I was mistaken."

The girl breathes again. But too soon. For now Willy jumps up. "Liar!" he shouts. "She lies like a dog! She had been having a grind with the fellow—she was still half naked when she came out."

Tumult. The Counsel for the Prosecution protests. The President reprimands Willy, but he is now beyond control. Albert looks at him despairingly. "Though you went down on your knees to me, I must say it!" he calls to him. "She was whoring, and when the prisoner confronted her, she told him Bartscher had made her drunk; then he went mad and fired. He told me so himself, when he went to give himself up."

The Counsel for the Defence pounces on it. "So he did—
so he did!" the girl shrieks in confusion. The Prosecutor is 
gesticulating wildly: "The dignity of the Court——"

Willy turns on him like a bull. "Don't you get on your high horse, you pedantic, old snake! Do you think we care for your wigs and your trappings? Try and turn us out if you can! What do you know about us anyway? The boy there was gentle and quiet, ask his mother if he was not. But today he shoots, as once he might have thrown pebbles. Remorse? Remorse? How should he feel remorse now for killing a fellow who has smashed in pieces everything he had in the world, when for four years he has had to shoot down innocent men?—The only mistake he made was that he shot the wrong person. It was the woman he should have done in!—Do you think then that four years killing can be wiped off the brain with the flabby word 'Peace' as with a wet sponge?—We know well enough we cannot shoot up our private enemies at will, but once let anger take us, and we are confused and overpowered, think then where it must land us!"

There is wild confusion in the court. The President tries in vain to restore order.

We stand side by side, Willy looks terrific, Kosole's fists are clenched; they can do nothing against us for the moment, we are too dangerous. The one policeman is taking no risks. I jump forward and face the bench where the jury is seated. "We are pleading for a comrade!" I cry. "Do not condemn him! He had no desire to become so indifferent to life and death—none of us did! But we had to abandon all such values out there, and since we came back no man has lifted a hand to help us! Patriotism, Duty, Home—we said all these things to ourselves again and again, merely to endure it, to justify it. But they were only abstractions—there was too much blood there, it swept them away."

Suddenly Willy is standing beside me.

"It is not a year yet since this man"—he points to Albert, "was lying out alone with his two mates in a machine-gun post—the only one in the sector—and an attack came. But the three were quite calm; they set their aim and waited, they didn't fire too soon, they merely sighted exactly at belly level. Then when the columns before them, supposing everything clear, began to advance, not till then did they open fire; and so it went on again and again—it was a long time before they could get reinforcements. But the attack was repulsed in the end. And afterwards we brought in those who had been shot down by the machine-gun; there were twenty-seven beautiful belly hits, every one as true as the next, almost all of them fatal —and that is not counting the rest, the thigh-wounds, the wounds in the balls, in the guts, in the chest, in the head.— This man alone"—he points to Albert again—"with his two mates had taken care of enough to fill a whole hospital —though, of course most of the stomach-wounds never got that far. And for that he was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, and congratulated by the Colonel. Do you understand now why this man is not subject to your points of law and your civil code?—It is not for you to judge him!