The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (35 page)

Down below, the men were pulling at his leg again, and he shouted down to them that he had seen cannon, cannon firing, and the yelling down below grew louder. The flashes from the gun muzzles they had driven past were fading away behind them, and the sound of the shells being fired, which at first had seemed horribly close, now seemed as far away as the sound of the shells landing, while the van was steadily approaching the area where the shells were landing. They drove past more tanks, stationary columns; then came more guns, these seemed to be smaller, they were standing next to a draw well, and the flames from their muzzles lit up the sinister gallows-outline of the well in sharp flashes. Again there was nothing for a while, until they passed some more columns, then nothing again—and then Finck heard the firing of machine guns. The van was heading straight for the area toward which the machine guns were firing.

And suddenly they stopped in a village. Finck clambered down inside and got out with the others. In the village all was confusion; there were trucks standing around all over the place, people yelling,
soldiers running across the road, and the firing of the machine guns grew louder and louder. Feinhals walked behind the little sergeant who had been standing in the roof opening and was now carrying his heavy suitcase; he was so short and walked so doubled up that the butt of his rifle dragged along the ground. Feinhals fastened his bag to the carrying strap and took a stride forward to catch up with the little sergeant. “I’ll give you a hand,” he said. “What have you got in there anyway?”

“Wine,” said the little man, gasping. “Wine for our hospital administrator.”

“Leave it here, for God’s sake,” said Feinhals. “How can you lug a suitcase full of wine up to the front?”

The little man shook his head obstinately. He was so exhausted he could hardly walk, his knees were wobbling, and he shook his head sadly and nodded his thanks as Feinhals reached for the handle. The suitcase seemed fantastically heavy to Feinhals.

The machine gun on the right had stopped firing, the tanks were firing into the village now. From behind them came the crash of splitting timbers, and a gentle reflection from a fire threw a soft light over the muddy, rutted road.

“Throw the thing away, man,” said Feinhals. “You must be out of your mind.”

The sergeant did not answer; he seemed to grip the handle even tighter. Behind them another house started burning.

Suddenly the second lieutenant walking ahead of them halted and called out, “Get close to the house!” They ran right up to the wall of the house in front of which they had stopped. The little sergeant lurched against it and sat down on his suitcase. Now the machine gun on the left had also stopped firing. The officer went indoors and came out at once with a first lieutenant. Feinhals recognized him. They had to line up, and Feinhals knew the first lieutenant was trying to make out their decorations in the reddish twilight: on his own chest he now had one more, a proper one now, at least the ribbon for it, adorning his chest in black, white, and red. Thank God, thought Feinhals, he had that medal at least. The first lieutenant looked at them for a moment, smiling, then said, “Very nice,” smiled again, and repeated, “Very nice, eh?” to the second lieutenant standing behind him. But the second lieutenant said nothing. They could see him distinctly now. He was short and pale, no
longer very young, it seemed, and his face was grimy and unsmiling. He didn’t have a single medal on his chest.

“Brecht,” the first lieutenant told him, “take two men as reinforcement. And some bazookas. We’ll send the others to Undolf—four, I guess. I’ll keep the rest here.”

“Two,” said Brecht. “Yessir, two men, and some bazookas.”

“Right,” said the first lieutenant. “You know where to find those things?”

“Yessir.”

“Report back in half an hour, please.”

“Yessir,” said the second lieutenant.

Feinhals and Finck were the first in line, and the second lieutenant tapped them on the chest, saying, “Come along,” then turned on his heel and marched off. They had to hurry to keep up with him. The little sergeant snatched up his suitcase, Feinhals helped him, and they hurried off as fast as they could behind the little second lieutenant. Beyond the house they turned to the right into a narrow lane that seemed to lead out into the country between hedges and meadows. Ahead of them all was quiet, but behind them that tank was still firing regularly into the village, and the small battery, the last one they had driven past, was still firing to the right, roughly in the direction in which they were heading.

Feinhals suddenly dropped to the ground and shouted to the others, “Watch out!” There was a tinkle as they let go of the suitcase, and the second lieutenant up front also dropped to the ground. From up ahead, from the direction in which they had been marching, grenade launchers were firing into the village, they were firing in rapid succession now, there seemed to be a great many of them; splinters whizzed through the air, smacked against house walls, bigger fragments droned past them not far away.

“Get up,” shouted the second lieutenant. “Carry on.”

“Hold it!” cried Feinhals. He had heard that brittle clack again, a delicate, almost cheerful sound, and he was scared. There was a great crash as the grenade struck Finck’s suitcase—the lid of the suitcase flew off with a fierce hiss and hit a tree twenty yards away, broken glass tore through the air like a swarm of demented birds, Feinhals could feel the wine splashing onto the back of his neck. He ducked in alarm: he hadn’t heard these being fired, but there was an explosion ahead of them, on
the field above a low earth bank. A haystack standing out black against the reddish background fell apart and started to smolder; it began to glow in the middle like tinder, then blazed up as it burst into flames.

The second lieutenant came crawling back down the hollow. “What the hell’s going on here?” he whispered to Feinhals.

“He had wine in the suitcase,” whispered Feinhals. “Hey there,” he called softly across to Finck—a dark lump lying crouched beside the suitcase. Nothing stirred. “Hell,” said the second lieutenant under his breath, “surely he’s not …”

Feinhals crawled the two paces over to Finck, bumped his head against Finck’s foot, propped himself up on his elbows, and pulled himself closer. The light from the burning haystack did not reach this hollow, it was dark in this shallow depression while the field at the side of the lane was already bathed in reddish light. “Hey there,” said Feinhals quietly. He smelled the strong sweet fumes from a wine puddle, drew back his hands because he had thrust them into broken glass, and, beginning with the shoes, groped carefully up the man’s legs, surprised to find how short this sergeant was; his legs were short, his body skinny. “Hey there,” he called softly, “hey there, pal,” but Finck did not answer. The second lieutenant had crawled over and said, “What’s up?” Feinhals groped farther along until he touched blood—that wasn’t wine—he drew back his hand and said quietly, “I think he’s dead. A big wound in the back, soaked with blood; d’you have a flashlight?”

“Perhaps we could …”

“Or lift him up there onto the field …”

“Wine,” said the second lieutenant, “a suitcase full of wine … What did he want that for?”

“For a commissariat, I think.”

Finck was not heavy. They carried him, walking doubled up, across the path, rolled him over the grass bank until he was lying flat, dark and flat in the light. His back was black with blood. Feinhals turned him over carefully—he saw the face for the first time; it was frail, very frail, thin, still slightly damp with sweat, the thick black hair clinging to the forehead.

“My God,” said Feinhals.

“What is it?”

“He got one right in the chest. A splinter as big as your fist.”

“In the chest?”

“That’s right—he must have been kneeling over his suitcase.”

“Contrary to regulations,” said the second lieutenant, but his own joke seemed to turn sour on him. “Get his paybook and identity tag …”

Feinhals carefully unbuttoned the blood-soaked tunic, felt for the neck until his fingers closed on a bloodied piece of metal. He found the paybook right away too; it was in the left-hand breast pocket and seemed clean.

“Hell,” the second lieutenant said behind him, “the suitcase is heavy—it still is.” He had dragged it across the path and was also pulling Finck’s rifle along by its strap. “Did you get the things?”

“Yes,” said Feinhals.

“Let’s get out of here.” The second lieutenant dragged the suitcase along by one corner until the hollow came to an end and the ground was flat again, then he whispered to Feinhals, “Get behind that wall on the left,” and crawled ahead. “Push the suitcase after me.” Feinhals pushed the suitcase after him and crawled slowly up the little rise. Behind the wall, which ran at right angles to their path, they could stand upright, and now they looked at each other. The glow from the burning haystack was bright enough for them to see one another distinctly, and they stared at each other for a moment. “What’s your name?” asked the officer.

“Feinhals.”

“Mine’s Brecht,” said the second lieutenant. He smiled awkwardly. “I must admit I’ve got a hell of a thirst.” He bent down over the suitcase, drew it onto the strip of thick grass, and carefully tipped out the contents. There was a gentle clinking and burbling. “Look at that,” he said, picking up a small, undamaged bottle. “Tokay.” The label was smeared with blood and wet with wine. Feinhals watched the officer carefully push aside the broken glass—five or six bottles seemed to be still intact. Brecht got out his pocketknife and opened one. He drank. “Marvelous,” he said as he put down the bottle. “Want some?”

“Thanks,” said Feinhals. He took the bottle and drank a mouthful; he found it too sweet, handed the bottle back, and repeated, “Thanks.”

The grenade launchers were firing again into the village, farther away now, and suddenly a machine gun fired quite close in front of them. “Thank God,” said Brecht. “I was beginning to think those had gone too.”

He finished the bottle and let it roll down into the hollow. “We have to get past this wall on the left.”

The haystack was in full blaze now, but at the very bottom only a glow was left. Sparks showered.

“You look pretty sensible,” said the officer.

Feinhals was silent.

“What I mean is,” said Brecht as he started to open the second bottle, “what I mean is, sensible enough to know that this war’s a load of shit.”

Feinhals was silent.

“By that I mean,” went on Brecht, “that when you win a war it isn’t a load of shit, and this war—so it seems to me—is a very, very bad war.”

“Yes,” said Feinhals. “It’s a very, very bad war.” The heavy firing of the machine gun at such close quarters was getting on his nerves.

“Where’s the machine gun?” he asked quietly.

“Over there, where this wall comes to an end—it’s a farm—we’re in front of it now—the machine gun’s behind it …”

The machine gun fired a few more short sharp rounds, then stopped. Next a Russian machine gun fired, then they heard rifle shots, and again the German and Russian machine guns fired together. And suddenly there was silence.

“Shit,” said Brecht.

The haystack began to collapse, the flames were no longer beating so high, there was a gentle crackling, and darkness fell lower. The second lieutenant held out a bottle to Feinhals. Feinhals shook his head. “No, thanks, it’s too sweet for me,” he said.

“Have you been with the infantry long?” asked Brecht.

“Yes,” said Feinhals, “four years.”

“My God,” said Brecht. “The stupid thing is that I don’t know much about the infantry—practically speaking, that is, and I’d be a fool to say I did. I’ve had two years’ training as a night fighter—just finished it—and my training cost the government a few nice single-family homes, all so that I can get blown to pieces in the infantry and lay down my life to get to Valhalla. What a load of shit, eh?” He took another drink. Feinhals was silent.

“What does one do, actually, when the enemy is superior?” the second lieutenant persevered. “Two days ago we were fifteen miles away, and we kept hearing we weren’t going to budge. But we did budge. I
know the rules too well. The rules say: The German soldier does not yield, he would rather be killed—something like that, but I’m not blind and I’m not deaf. I ask you,” he said solemnly, “what do we do?”

“Clear out, I guess,” said Feinhals.

“Great,” said the second lieutenant. “Clear out. Great—clear out.” He laughed softly. “There’s something missing in our fine Prussian regulations: there’s no provision for retreat in our training, that’s why we have to be so smart when we do retreat. I believe our regulations are the only ones that say nothing about retreat, only ‘delaying tactics,’ and these jokers aren’t going to let themselves be delayed any longer. Let’s go,” he said. He stuffed two bottles into his pockets. “Off to this lovely war again. My God,” he added, “the poor bugger lugged that wine all the way here—the poor bugger …”

Feinhals followed slowly. As they turned the corner of the wall, they heard men running toward them. The footsteps were clearly audible, close now. The second lieutenant jumped back behind the wall, tucked his machine pistol under his arm, and whispered to Feinhals: “Here’s your chance to earn eighteen pfennigs’ worth of tin for your chest.” But Feinhals noticed he was trembling. “Hell,” whispered the second lieutenant, “this is serious, this is war.”

The footsteps came closer, the men were no longer running.

“Don’t worry,” said Feinhals quietly, “those aren’t Russians.”

Brecht was silent.

“I wonder why they were running—and making all that racket …”

Brecht was silent.

“They’re your men,” said Feinhals. The footsteps sounded quite close now.

Although they could tell from the silhouettes that the men wearing steel helmets and rounding the corner were Germans, the second lieutenant called softly, “Halt, password.” The men were startled; Feinhals saw them hesitate and flinch. “Shit,” said one of them. “The password’s shit.”

“Tannenberg,” said another voice.