'No,' said Krap. 'I'm a night bird. That's when I go hunting. Unlike you, I do my screwing during the day.'
Krap was obsessed with sex. It was his chief topic of conversation.
After this, everyone began cursing the bureaucrats who cleared out of Berlin every evening and drove back to their country homes, and those fine warriors, the quartermasters, who were awarded more medals than men serving in the front line. They talked about the sufferings undergone by soldiers' families when their houses were destroyed by bombs. They cursed the Casanovas in the rear who tried to make off with soldiers' wives. They cursed the military stores where you couldn't buy anything except eau-de-Cologne and razor-blades.
In the bed next to Bach was a Lieutenant Gerne. At first Bach had thought he was an aristocrat, but he turned out to be a peasant- one of the men brought to the fore by the National Socialists. He had been the deputy to a regimental chief of staff and had been wounded by a bomb-splinter during a night air-raid.
When the goalkeeper was taken away to be operated on, Lieutenant Fresser, a rather simple man who had the bed in the corner, said: 'People have been shooting at me since 1939, but I've never made a song and dance about my patriotism. I get my food and drink, I get clothed – and I fight. Without philosophising about it.'
'Not entirely,' said Bach. 'When front-line soldiers make fun of a man like the goalkeeper, that's already a kind of philosophy.'
'Really?' said Gerne. 'How very interesting! May I ask just what kind of philosophy?'
Bach could tell from the hostile expression in Gerne's eyes that he was one of those people with a deep hatred of the old German intelligentsia. Bach had had his fill of speeches and articles attacking the intelligentsia for their admiration of American plutocracy, their hidden sympathies for Talmudism and Hebraic abstraction, and for the Jewish styles in literature and painting. Now he felt furious. If he was prepared to bow down before the rude strength of these new men, why then should they look at him with that wolf-like suspicion? Hadn't he been bitten by as many lice as they had? Hadn't he had frost bite? Here he was, a front-line officer – and they still didn't consider him a true German! Bach closed his eyes and turned to the wall.
'Why do you ask with such venom?' he wanted to mutter angrily.
'Do you really not understand?' Gerne would reply with a smile of contemptuous superiority.
'No, I don't understand,' he would say irritably. 'I told you. But perhaps I can guess.'
Gerne, of course, would burst out laughing.
'You suspect me of duplicity,' he would shout.
'That's right! Duplicity!' Gerne would repeat brightly.
'Impotence of the will?'
At this point Fresser would begin to laugh. Krap, supporting himself on his elbows, would stare insolently at Bach.
'You're a band of degenerates!' Bach would thunder. 'And you, Gerne, are half-way between a man and a monkey!'
Numb with hatred, Bach screwed up his eyes still tighter.
'You only have to write some little pamphlet on the most trivial of questions, and you think that gives you the right to despise the men who laid the foundations of German science. You only have to publish some miserable novella, and you think you can spit on the glory of German literature. You seem to imagine the arts and sciences as a kind of Ministry where there's no room for you because the older generation won't make way. Where you and your little book are denied admittance by Koch, Nernst, Planck and Kellerman… No, the arts and sciences are a Mount Parnassus beneath an infinite sky! There's room there for every genuine talent that has appeared throughout human history… Yes, if there's no place for you and your sterile fruits, it's certainly not for lack of room! You can throw out Einstein, but you'll never take his place yourselves. Yes, Einstein may be a Jew, but-forgive me for saying this – he's a genius. There's no power in the world that could enable you to step into his shoes. Is it really worth expending so much energy destroying people whose places must remain forever unoccupied? If your impotence has made it impossible for you to follow the paths opened up by Hitler, then the fault lies with you and you alone. Police methods and hatred can never achieve anything in the realm of culture. Can't you see how profoundly Hitler and Goebbels understand this? You should learn from them. See with what love, patience and tact, they themselves cherish German science, art and literature! Follow their example! Follow the path of consolidation instead of sowing discord in the midst of our common cause!'
After delivering this imaginary speech, Bach opened his eyes again. His neighbours were all lying quietly under their blankets.
'Watch this, comrades!' said Fresser. With the sweeping gesture of a conjuror, he took out from under his pillow a litre bottle of 'Three Knaves' Italian cognac.
Gerne made a strange sound in his throat. Only a true drunkard -and a peasant drunkard at that – could gaze at a bottle with quite such rapture.
'He's not so bad after all,' thought Bach, feeling ashamed of his hysterical speech.
Fresser, hopping about on one leg, filled the glasses on their bedside tables.
'You're a lion!' said Krap with a smile.
'A true soldier!' said Gerne.
'One of the quacks spotted my bottle,' said Fresser. ' "What's that you've got wrapped up in a newspaper?" he asked. "Letters from my mother," I answered. "I carry them with me wherever I go." '
He raised his glass.
'And so, from Lieutenant Fresser, with greetings from the Front!'
They all drank.
Gerne, who immediately wanted more, said: 'Damn it! I suppose we'll have to leave some for the goalkeeper.'
'To hell with the goalkeeper!' said Krap. 'Don't you agree, Lieutenant?'
'We can have a drink – and he can carry out his duty to the Fatherland,' said Fresser. 'After all, we deserve a little fun.'
'My backside's really beginning to come to life,' said Krap. 'All I need now is a nice plump woman.'
They all felt a sense of ease and happiness.
'Well,' said Gerne, raising his glass. 'Let's have another!'
'It's a good thing we landed up in the same ward, isn't it?'
'I thought that straight away. I came in and I thought: "Yes, these are real men. They're hardened soldiers." '
'I must admit that I did have some doubts about Bach,' said Gerne. 'I thought he must be a Party member.'
'No, I've never been a member.'
They began to feel hot and removed their blankets. Their talk turned to the war.
Fresser had been on the left flank, near Okatovka. 'God knows,' he said, 'these Russians just don't know how to advance. But it's already November and we haven't moved forward either. Remember all the vodka we drank in August? All those toasts? "Here's to our continued friendship after the war! We must found an association for veterans of Stalingrad!'"
'They know how to launch an attack all right,' said Krap. He himself had been in the area of the factories. 'What they can't do is hold on. They drive us out of a building and then they just lie down and go to sleep. Or else they stuff themselves while their officers get pissed.'
'They're savages,' said Fresser with a wink. 'And we've wasted more iron on these savages from Stalingrad than on the whole of Europe.'
'And not just iron,' said Bach.
'If nothing's decided by winter,' said Gerne, 'then it will be a real stalemate. It's crazy.'
'We're preparing an offensive in the area of the factories,' said Krap very quietly. 'There's never been such a concentration of forces. Any day now they'll be unleashed. By November 20th we'll be sleeping with girls from Saratov.'
Through the curtained windows came the hum of Russian bombers and the majestic, unhurried thunder of artillery.
'There go the Russian cuckoos,' said Bach. 'They always carry out their raids around this time. Some people call them "nerve-saws".'