But first thing in the morning, the French sent him and his men a warning not to confuse this place with the previous one. While searching for a latrine, Privates Michael Baß and Adam Wimmerl ended up in a large courtyard open to the south that it was better not to enter at certain times. While they were still looking for somewhere to squat, a long-range battery, with which the garrison was very familiar, fired its first shell of the morning and blew them to bits. This caused a great deal of alarm, and struck the captain as an omen. It weighed heavily on him. Much weighed heavily on him. The air was bad, and the tunnels in this wing, unlike those in the other wings, were jet black with soot. The electric wiring had been newly laid. A side tunnel was completely sealed by a wall, which, though fairly new, consisted partly of old debris and boulders. The echoing vaults really were no fun, and the duties the company had been assigned were unpleasant: blasting operations while the French and German artillery exchanged fire; night-time spadework during which talking and smoking were forbidden, although the French front lay nearly 3km to the other side the fort. The commandant, a polite and taciturn Prussian captain from the Münster area, wasn’t a promising drinking buddy, much less the infantry officers, stationed here with a relief battalion, the radio operators and telephonists. The artillery lieutenant in charge of the armoured turrets was somewhat more affable. But when Niggl appeared in the towers, he pulled his head in nervously like a turtle, and the artillery officer hated that. Niggl hadn’t yet spoken to the sapper officer under whose command the Third Company was working. The sergeant majors had been in touch, and the lieutenant had inspected the men. But Captain Niggl had the right to expect the lieutenant to visit him first.
This happened. One morning between 10am and 11am, while the captain was writing an overblown letter to his wife, there was a knock on his door and the sapper lieutenant entered. Captain Niggl’s room was exactly the same as the lieutenant’s own, except that, as already mentioned, it faced one of the other sides of the moat, the north-west. This meant the entire length of the fort, some 300m, separated them. The lieutenant almost had to duck as he entered, and he rose tall and thin in the light from the window. Captain Niggl had turned his left side to it so that his writing hand didn’t cast a shadow on the paper. The captain was delighted to see the lieutenant and stood up to greet his visitor. But the visitor’s first words took his breath away. The sapper lieutenant asked that he kindly be allowed to introduce himself: his name was Kroysing, Eberhard Kroysing, and he hoped that he and the captain would work well together. As he uttered these harmless-sounding, official words, his eyes searched Herr Niggl’s face. A career in the civil service engenders self-control. Herr Niggl politely offered his visitor a seat, but his inner eye was scanning the threatening outlines of some shadowy connections.
‘Kroysing?’ he repeated in a questioning tone.
The tall lieutenant bowed in confirmation. ‘Exactly so. You know the name.’
‘We had an NCO in the Third Company—’
‘That was my brother,’ the lieutenant broke in.
Sadly, sadly, death always takes the best ones, said Captain Niggl sympathetically. Sergeant Kroysing had been a model of conscientiousness who would have been a credit to the officer corps. He’d only have had to hold out for another couple of months, and the worst would have been over. He would have got home leave and then gone to officer training and everything would have turned out well. Wasn’t it just like the thing that the Frogs had got him just before?
The lieutenant bowed in thanks. Yes, war didn’t pick and choose, and his parents would slowly get over it. His brother had implied something about a court martial procedure the last time they spoke. But that had been at the end of April or beginning of May, if memory served, soon after the dreadful explosion at any rate and during the heavy fighting towards Thiaumont-Fleury, and he really hadn’t had time to deal with it. He’d only spoken to his brother for about 20 minutes. What had the whole thing been about?
Captain Niggl began by asking how the lieutenant had come to serve in a Prussian unit when the Kroysings were a good Bavarian family, Franconian if he wasn’t mistaken, from Nuremberg. The lieutenant explained that he had been drafted into the Mark sappers as a staff sergeant in the military Reserve immediately after the end of term at the Technical University in Charlottenburg and had remained there as a lieutenant. This was a reflection of the unity of the German Reich that their grandfathers had talked so much about and that their fathers had fought for in 1870. But to get back to the court martial procedure: what was it really about?
Nothing, said Herr Niggl. Or as good as nothing. The army postal censor was overly nervous, and honest young Sergeant Kroysing had unfortunately written a couple of injudicious phrases to a high-ranking military official. He really couldn’t remember anything more specific at the moment. He’d been terribly annoyed to have to investigate such a good soldier for something like that. But it wasn’t up to him, and besides young Kroysing would definitely have emerged from the investigation untarnished. Alas, everyone underestimated the dangers the ASC men faced. Had the lieutenant heard that two of his men had been blown to bits only yesterday morning, just as Christoph had been a couple of months before?
The lieutenant made a mental note that Niggl had said ‘Christoph’. His expression remained unchanged. He too was sure that the court martial would have rehabilitated his brother, he said. But where were the files? Whom should he approach to get the process underway? Herr Niggl said he didn’t know. The files had gone through official channels, the way of all flesh. Perhaps the Third Company’s Sergeant Major Feicht could provide some information. Sergeant Major Feicht, the lieutenant repeated, noting the name down. And what about his brother’s effects? There were all sorts of valuable items, some from the time of their great-grandfather, Judge Kroysing in the Royal Bavarian Court, and personal things that might console their mother. And papers, maybe sketches or poems. Christoph had written some now and then. Their mother would probably want to pull together a small memorial booklet for relatives and friends. In short, where were these things?
Captain Niggl was taken aback and said that they had remained at the military hospital, which had sent them home as it was obliged to do. No, said Lieutenant Kroysing, that was not the case. On the day of the funeral, the military hospital had told him that the company had claimed the effects straight away in order to send them home itself. Ah yes, said the captain, it just showed how faithfully the Third Company’s orderly room looked after its men. The items must have been sent to Nuremberg immediately. Hmm, said Lieutenant Kroysing, then all that remained was for him to express his thanks. With the captain’s permission he would ask at home if the effects had arrived in the meantime and report back. But now he wouldn’t encroach on his time any longer. He’d interrupted him about a purely private matter when he was in the middle of writing a letter. Just one more question, this time of an official nature, and with this he stood up: in order to encourage his men, might the captain occasionally like to accompany the early-morning bomb disposal units or the night-time construction parties? It would definitely make a good impression and help the captain with the commanding officers. Danger lurked both inside and out. With that, he bowed and took leave of the higher-ranked, senior officer with the prescribed salute: heels together, finger to his cap. He didn’t give him his hand.