‘Of course, it’s not just medals,’ said the neighbour. Bertin listened up. These men were talking like Pahl, like the inn-keeper Lebehde, Halezinsky the gas worker and little Vehse from Hamburg. In the pallid darkness that had once more descended, their faces shimmered like masks under the sharp edges of their helmets.
The men who were still on duty looked ahead again, while the others began to vanish into the dugouts. The bespectacled Saxon had just expressed his amazement at Bertin’s cap and was asking what kinds of folks Süßmann and his lieutenant had brought to the front, when Father Lochner’s substantial shoulders came into view, topped by Kroysing’s tall form. Süßmann quickly kicked the Saxon in the shin, and he got the message equally quickly. ‘I’m a theology student too and I’ve never been out of Halle in my life,’ he said.
‘A colleague?’ asked the chaplain innocently.
‘Yes, Pastor, sir!’ replied the sergeant, standing to attention. Bertin bit back a grin. ‘Sir’ and ‘pastor’ didn’t go together.
Father Lochner didn’t notice. He wanted to be kind to the young man. ‘The hand of our Lord God will continue to protect you,’ he said and made to move on.
But in his polite voice and as if agreeing with the priest, the young theologian replied, ‘I almost believe that myself. Nothing will happen to us for the time being. The likes of us get killed on the morning of the armistice.’
Lochner twitched, said nothing and tried to move on. The Saxons nudged one another. As they moved on, Kroysing spoke into his companion’s ear, asking him if this sample of sentiment at the front was enough for him and if he’d like to head for home.
‘Ten minutes and a schnapps,’ the priest requested.
Kroysing was happy to oblige. ‘When will you speak to Herr Niggl?’ he asked casually as he unhooked his canteen.
Lochner’s face took on an imploring look. ‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ he promised. ‘As soon as I get back.’
Kroysing’s head revolved on his long neck like a lighthouse. He was looking for Bertin. ‘I want to gather in my chicks,’ he explained.
Sergeant Süßmann cocked his thumb Bertin’s direction. ‘He’s studying no man’s land.’
Bertin had forced his head into a gap in the screen above the mine throwers. Hands cupping his eyes, he peered into the night at the glinting barbed wire entanglements. The reflection from the explosions no longer blinded him. Far back to the right, German shells were now bursting. Something formless menaced in the distance, something dark, strange and fascinating. And he remembered a school excursion he’d gone on one morning as a 13-year-old to Three Emperors’ Corner, where the German Kaiser’s Reich met those of the Austrians and the Tsars behind the town of Myslowitz. The greenish waters of a stream called the Przemsa snaked between them. Nothing distinguished one bank of the stream from the other: flat green land, a railway bridge, a sandy path, and in the distance a wood. Only the uniform of the border Cossack was different from that of the German customs guard. But the young schoolboy had nonetheless sensed the foreign on the other side of the stream, another country both threatening and fascinating, where the language was unintelligible, the customs different and the people uneducated, perhaps even dangerous. Borders, thought Bertin. Borders! What tales we’ve been told! What had that clever Saxon said when the French were shooting? ‘Bastards that we may be.’ We: that’s what it was all about. Who had held his canteen to a Frenchman’s thirsty lips? And now this…? There was no hope of getting to the truth.
Kroysing watched his charge approvingly. He’d brought him here partly to study his behaviour at the edge of the abyss. No doubt about it: he’d done well. Let him go back to his stuffy old company, he thought, and then my suggestion will seem to him like a message from heaven.
‘Why are you shaking your head, Bertin?’ he asked behind his back.
‘I can’t see anything,’ Bertin answered, climbing down carefully.
‘Reason should have told you that would be the case.’
‘Sometimes we believe appearances more than reason.’
‘All right,’ said Kroysing. ‘Now we can get some sleep.’
On the way back, the moon and stars lit the pitted area. Refreshed from his sleep, Bertin gladly breathed in the air, which cooled as they pushed on. The burnt smoke from the explosives hadn’t blown this way; the night wind had driven it to the river. After half an hour of walking in silence, Kroysing tapped Bertin on the shoulder and pulled him back a little.
‘I don’t know if we’ll get a chance to speak tomorrow, as you’re sleeping in Süßmann’s billet and clearing off early,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen what kinds of nice surprises the Frogs have in store for us. We got off lightly today; tomorrow could be a different story. For that reason, I’d like to prevail on you again in relation to our small family matter. There are a couple of objects in my desk drawer that belonged to my brother and a couple of papers that Judge Advocate Mertens must receive as soon as someone has signed a certain harmless slip of paper. If I’m not able to do it, I’ll rely on you. Will that be okay?’ he asked urgently.
And after a moment’s thought Bertin said, ‘That’ll be okay.’
‘Excellent,’ said Kroysing. ‘Then all that remains is for me to carry out a commission on behalf of my brother, who sends you his fountain pen through me.’ Kroysing’s big hand held out a black rod.
Bertin was taken aback. His eyes under the rim of his helmet timidly sought those of Kroysing, whose war-like face was dusky in the gloaming. ‘Please, don’t,’ he said quietly. ‘This belongs to your parents.’
‘It belongs to you,’ retorted Kroysing. ‘I’m executing his will.’ Bertin hesitantly took the gift from Kroysing’s fingers and looked at it, concealing his superstitious feelings. ‘I hope it will serve you longer than it did the youngster and remind you of the Kroysings’ gratitude every time you put it to paper. A writer and a pen like that go together.’
Bertin thanked him uncertainly. The pressure of the long, hard object in the breast pocket of his tunic felt new and strange: the Kroysings held him fast.
BOOK FIVE
In the fog
CHAPTER ONE
October
THE EARTH WAS a rusty disc, capped by a pewter sky from which rain had been falling for a month.
On 20 October, four tired ASC men trudged up morosely from Moirey station. They and Sergeant Knappe, the ammunitions expert, had been engaged in the tedious task of loading powder charges on to a goods lorry and now they were done. All of them longed for a cigarette or a smoke of a pipe, but it was out of the question. Their wages weren’t due until the day after next, when they would all get their tobacco ration for the next 10 days. Until then, they helped each another out. Private Bertin, for example, had promised to give one of his remaining cigarettes to each of the other three, as the paper irritated his sensitive throat. Shivering and fed up, the four men tramped back along the main road to the depot. The road was covered in a layer of whitish mush as thick as a thumb unsuited to their lace-up shoes. The men wore tarpaulins wrapped round them like short hooded coats to protect them from the rain, but as they’d already done a day’s shift in Fosses wood, the stiff canvas material was soaked through. The canvas jackets they wore underneath were damp too. Only their tunics were still dry, and if it got any colder they could put their coats on for another layer. These four very different men had all volunteered to help the ammunitions expert; Lebehde the shrewd inn-keeper had offered because he hoped to bum a smoke from the railwaymen, Przygulla the farm labourer because he did everything Lebehde did, good-natured Otto Reinhold because he didn’t want to leave his fellow skat players in the lurch and Bertin for reasons connected with his visit to the front-line trenches.