The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (15 page)

“Yessir.”

“To hell with that Yessir crap, just Yes when you’re talking to me. And undo your belt,” he was shouting again now, “take that damn crappy belt off when you go to sleep.”

The younger man looked at him nervously and took off his belt, placing it beside him in the straw.

“Roll your coat up into a pillow. That’s right. Okay … and now go to sleep, I’ll wake you when it’s time for you to die …”

The younger man rolled onto his side and tried to sleep. All that was visible was the young brown hair, matted and untidy, a very thin neck, and the empty shoulders of his uniform tunic. The candle flickered gently, letting its meager light swing back and forth in the dark dugout like a great yellow butterfly uncertain where to settle.

The older man stayed as he was, knees drawn up, puffing out cigarette smoke at the ground in front of him. The ground was dark brown, here and there white blade marks showed where the spade had cut through a root or, a little closer to the surface, a tuber. The roof consisted of a few planks with a groundsheet thrown over them, and in the spaces between the planks the groundsheet sagged a little because the earth lying on top of it was heavy, heavy and wet. Outside, it was raining. The soft swish of steadily falling water sounded indescribably persistent, and the older man, still staring fixedly at the ground, now noticed a thin trickle of water oozing into the dugout under the roof. The tiny stream backed up slightly on encountering some loose earth, then flowed on past the obstacle until it reached the next one, which was the man’s feet, and the ever-growing tide flowed all around the man’s feet until his black boots lay in the water just like a peninsula. The man spat his cigarette butt into the puddle and lit another from the candle. In doing so he took the candle down from the edge of the dugout and placed it beside him on an ammunition case. The half where the younger man was lying was almost in darkness, reached now by the swaying light in brief spasms only, and these gradually subsided.

“Go to sleep, damn you,” said the older man. “D’you hear? Go to sleep!”

“Yessir … yes,” came the faint voice, obviously wider awake than before, when it had been dark.

“Hold on,” said the older man, less harshly again. “A couple more cigarettes and then I’ll put it out, and at least we’ll drown in the dark.”

He went on smoking, sometimes turning his head to the left, where the boy was lying, but he spat the second butt into the steadily growing puddle, lit the third, and still he could tell from the breathing beside him that the kid couldn’t sleep.

He then took the spade, thrust it into the soft earth, and made a little mud wall behind the blanket forming the entrance. Behind this wall he heaped up a second layer of earth. With a spadeful of earth he covered the puddle at his feet. Outside, there was no sound save the gentle swish of the rain; little by little, the earth lying on top of the groundsheet had evidently become saturated, for water was now beginning to drip from above too.

“Oh, shit,” muttered the older man. “Are you asleep?”

“No.”

The man spat the third cigarette butt over the mud wall and blew out the candle. He pulled up his blanket again, worked his feet into a comfortable position, and lay back with a sigh. It was quite silent and quite dark, and again the only sound was that aimless rustle of someone trying to get to sleep, and the swish of the rain, very gentle.

“Willi’s been wounded,” the boy’s voice said suddenly, after a few minutes’ silence. The voice was more awake than ever, in fact not even sleepy.

“What d’you mean?” asked the man in reply.

“Just that—wounded,” came the younger voice, with something like triumph in it, pleased that it knew some important piece of news which the older voice obviously knew nothing about. “Wounded while he was shitting.”

“You’re nuts,” said the man; then he gave another sigh and went on, “That’s what I call a real break; I never heard of such luck. One day you come back from leave and the next day you get wounded while you’re shitting. Is it serious?”

“No,” said the boy with a laugh, “though actually it’s not minor either. A bullet fracture, but in the arm.”

“A bullet fracture in the arm! You come back from leave and while you’re shitting you get wounded, a bullet fracture in the arm! What a break … How did it happen?”

“When they went for water last evening,” came the younger voice, quite animated now. “When they went for water, they were going down the hill at the back, carrying their water cans, and Willi told Sergeant Schubert, ‘I’ve got to shit, Sergeant!’ ‘Nothing doing,’ said the sergeant. But Willi couldn’t hold on any longer so he just ran off, pulled down his pants, and bang! A grenade. And they actually had to pull up his pants for him. His left arm was wounded, and his right arm was holding it, so he ran off like that to get it bandaged, with his pants around his ankles. They all laughed, everyone laughed, even Sergeant Schubert laughed.” He added the last few words almost apologetically, as if to excuse his own laughter, because he was laughing now …

But the older man wasn’t laughing.

“Light!” he said with an oath. “Here, give me the matches, let’s have some light!” He struck a match, cursing as it flared up. “At least I want some light, even if I don’t get wounded. At least let’s have some light, the least they can do is give us enough candles if they want to play war. Light! Light!” He was shouting again as he lit another cigarette.

The younger voice had sat up again and was poking around with a spoon in a greasy can held on his knees.

And there they sat, crouching side by side, without a word, in the yellow light.

The man smoked aggressively, and the boy was already looking somewhat greasy: his childish face smeared, bread crumbs sticking to his matted hair around most of his hairline.

The boy then proceeded to scrape out the grease can with a piece of bread.

All of a sudden there was silence: the rain had stopped. Neither of them moved, they looked at each other, the man with the cigarette in his hand, the boy holding the bread in his trembling fingers. It was uncannily quiet, they took a few breaths, and then heard rain still dripping somewhere from the groundsheet.

“Hell,” said the older man. “D’you suppose the sentry’s still there? I can’t hear a thing.”

The boy put the bread into his mouth and threw the can into the straw beside him.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “They’re going to let us know when it’s our turn to relieve.”

The older man got up quickly. He blew out the light, jammed on his steel helmet, and thrust aside the blanket. What came through the opening was not light. Just cool damp darkness. The man pinched out his cigarette and stuck his head outside.

“Hell,” he muttered outside, “not a thing. Hey!” he called softly. Then his dark head reappeared inside, and he asked, “Where’s the next dugout?”

The boy groped his way to his feet and stood next to the other man in the opening.

“Quiet!” said the man suddenly, in a sharp, low tone. “Something’s crawling around out there.”

They peered ahead. It was true: in the silent darkness there was a sound of someone crawling, and all of a sudden an unearthly snapping sound that made them both jump. It sounded as if someone had flung a live cat against the wall: the sound of breaking bones.

“Hell,” muttered the older man, “there’s something funny going on. Where’s the sentry?”

“Over there,” said the boy, groping in the dark for the other man’s hand and lifting it toward the right. “Over there,” he repeated. “That’s where the dugout is too.”

“Wait here,” said the older man, “and better get your rifle, just in case.”

Once again they heard that sickening snapping sound, then silence, and someone crawling.

The older man crept forward through the mud, occasionally halting and quietly listening, until after a few yards he finally heard a muffled voice; then he saw a faint gleam of light from the ground, felt around till he found the entrance, and called, “Hey, chum!”

The voice stopped, the light went out, a blanket was pushed aside, and a man’s dark head came up out of the ground.

“What’s up?”

“Where’s the sentry?”

“Over there—right here.”

“Where?”

“Hey there, Neuer!… Hey there!”

No answer: the crawling sound had stopped, all sound had stopped, there was only darkness out there, silent darkness. “God damn it, that’s queer,” said the voice of the man who had come up out of the ground. “Hey there!… That’s funny, he was standing right here by the dugout, only a few feet away.” He pulled himself up over the edge and stood beside the man who had called him.

“There was someone crawling around out there,” said the man who had come across from the other dugout. “I know there was. The bastard’s quiet now.”

“Better have a look,” said the man who had come up out of the ground. “Shall we take a look?”

“Hm, there certainly ought to be a sentry here.”

“You fellows are next.”

“I know, but …”

“Ssh!”

Once again they could hear someone crawling out there, perhaps twenty feet away.

“God damn it,” said the man who had come up out of the ground, “you’re right.”

“Maybe someone still alive from last night, trying to crawl away.”

“Or new ones.”

“But what about the sentry, for God’s sake?”

“Shall we go?”

“Okay.”

Both men instantly dropped to the ground and started to move forward, crawling through the mud. From down there, from a worm’s-eye view, everything looked different. Every minutest elevation in the soil became a mountain range behind which, far off, something strange was visible: a slightly lighter darkness, the sky. Pistol in hand, they crawled on, yard by yard through the mud.

“God damn it,” whispered the man who had come up out of the ground, “a Russki from last night.”

His companion also soon bumped into a corpse, a mute, leaden bundle. Suddenly they were silent, holding their breath: there was that cracking sound again, quite close, as if someone had been given a terrific wallop on the jaw. Then they heard someone panting.

“Hey,” called the man who had come up out of the ground, “who’s there?”

The call silenced all sound, the very air seemed to hold its breath, until a quavering voice spoke, “It’s me …”

“God damn it, what the hell are you doing out there, you old asshole, driving us all nuts?” shouted the man who had come up out of the ground.

“I’m looking for something,” came the voice again.

The two men had got to their feet and now walked over to the spot where the voice was coming from the ground.

“I’m looking for a pair of shoes,” said the voice, but now they were standing next to him. Their eyes had become accustomed to the dark, and they could see corpses lying all around, ten or a dozen, lying there like logs, black and motionless, and the sentry was squatting beside one of these logs, fumbling around its feet.

“Your job’s to stick to your post,” said the man who had come up out of the ground.

The other man, the one who had summoned him out of the ground, dropped like a stone and bent over the dead man’s face. The man who had been squatting suddenly covered his face with his hands and began whimpering like a cowed animal.

“Oh, no,” said the man who had summoned the other out of the ground, adding in an undertone, “I guess you need teeth too, eh? Gold teeth, eh?”

“What’s that?” asked the man who had come up out of the ground, while at his feet the cringing figure whimpered louder than ever.

“Oh, no,” said the first man again, and the weight of the world seemed to be lying on his breast.

“Teeth?” asked the man who had come up out of the ground, whereupon he threw himself down beside the cringing figure and ripped a cloth bag from his hand.

“Oh, no!” the cringing figure cried too, and every extremity of human terror was expressed in this cry.

The man who had summoned the other out of the ground turned away, for the man who had come up out of the ground had placed his pistol against the cringing figure’s head, and he pressed the trigger.

“Teeth,” he muttered, as the sound of the shot died away. “Gold teeth.”

They walked slowly back, stepping very carefully as long as they were in the area where the dead lay.

“You fellows are on now,” said the man who had come up out of the ground, before vanishing into the ground again.

“Right,” was all the other man said, and he too crawled slowly back through the mud before vanishing into the ground again.

He could tell at once that the boy was still awake; there was that aimless rustle of someone trying to get to sleep.

“Light the candle,” he said quietly.

The yellow flame leaped up again, feebly illumining the little hole.

“What happened?” asked the boy in alarm, catching sight of the older man’s face.

“The sentry’s gone; you’ll have to replace him.”

“Yes,” said the youngster. “Give me the watch, will you, so I can wake the others.”

“Here.”

The older man squatted down on his straw and lit a cigarette, watching thoughtfully as the boy buckled on his belt, pulled on his coat, defused a hand grenade, and then wearily checked his machine pistol for ammunition.

“Right,” said the boy finally. “So long, now.”

“So long,” said the man, and he blew out the candle and lay in total darkness all alone in the ground …

Our math teacher was as good-natured as he was hot-tempered. He used to come charging into the classroom—hands in pockets—spew his cigarette butt into the cuspidor to the left of the wastepaper basket, take the dais by storm and, standing by his desk, call out my name as he asked some question or other to which I never knew the answer, no matter what it was.

After I had floundered my way to a halt, he would walk over to me, very slowly, accompanied by the tittering of the whole class, and cuff me over the head—my long-suffering head—in his rough good-natured way, muttering, “You boneheaded broommaker, you.”

It became a kind of ritual, the thought of which made me tremble throughout my school days, the more so since my knowledge of science, far from growing with increased demands, seemed to diminish. But, having duly cuffed me, he would leave me in peace, leave me to my meandering daydreams, for to try and teach me math was a completely hopeless proposition. I dragged my F after me all through those years like the heavy ball chained to a convict’s feet.