But the worst job of all, feared by everyone, was unloading the loose chippings. The men stood on the trucks, almost unable to feel their feet because of the cold, ramming a broad shovel into the recalcitrant stones and then throwing them with a wide swing into the new stretches of track. Whoever was assigned to beating them flat with a mattock was lucky, because he could move and get his circulation going. No more than three men could fit on to one truck at once without getting in each other’s way.
That day Privates Lebehde, Pahl and Bertin were unloading loose chippings. Lebehde was strong enough to wield the heaving shovel without overstraining himself, but Pahl and Bertin were in agony. They had taken off their coats, canvas jackets, tunics and sweaters, and were sweating and freezing at the same time in their flannel shirts. They shovelled on in grim silence. They were friends, and Karl Lebehde wouldn’t have turned his sharp tongue on the two weaker ones if they had left the bulk of the work to him. But precisely for that reason, decency demanded they not give up. The metallic twang of the shovel and the rattling of the stones was interrupted by shouts of encouragement and cursing. Thus a whole day would pass, from sunrise to sunset, during which the men hardly thought about the task in hand. They thought instead about the unconstrained U-boat war, which was inevitable, and the declaration of war from America that would follow it, which Bertin stupidly misjudged in line with the views imposed on the newspapers by German Army Command. The three men thought about all sorts of special plans, wishes and ideas. Some of their wishes were strange. For example, Private Bertin would have been very shocked if he had realised how seriously his comrade Pahl was considering sacrificing one little bit of his fragile body in order to get the rest home safely. That was why Pahl and Lebehde had not let him in on the secret. Although they thought he was a decent man, they considered him to be a loose canon – and weak, weak. He’d recently bought a tin of fat substitute from some crooked big shot in the kitchen staff and now quietly shovelled it down without offering any to his comrades. He hadn’t been like that before, and they’d have to rub his nose in it at some point. But, as Karl Lebehde pointed out, everyone was in dire straits and men even stole food parcels from each other within the squad, so there was no point in getting too moralistic. Pahl took a dimmer view of Bertin’s conduct, because he had to overcome his disappointment. Fat substitute was a good thing, but solidarity was a better one; Bertin had taken to eating his evening meal on his bunk and no longer showed the same comradely attitude as before. Well, that would change too. As a starter punishment, they told him that he’d been overlooked for the task of caring for a certain letter, which Sergeant Süßmann, now missing, had given to Comrade Lebehde in December. Instead of getting upset or being offended, Bertin had calmly asked if the thing had been duly forwarded. He seemed not to care about things that he would have cared about three months previously. Yes, life was hard. It was no jolly jig with pancakes and New Year’s Eve punch. Pride, sensitivity and honour all got moth-eaten. The fur on the jacket of high ideals and good intentions wore thin, leaving nothing but a scabby rabbit pelt, blue and bald.
Private Bertin really was in a bad way and every day it got worse. The back-breaking work in icy conditions had used up his last reserves of strength, and the occasional pleasant interlude, of which there were some, didn’t seem to help.
One evening, when he was already dozing on his bed and the rest of Schwertlein’s squad were doing their mending and playing cards, a stout man with glasses, a flat nose and bulging eyes marched into the barracks, bringing a gust of cold air behind him. He looked around in the bright carbide light, taking in the iron stove, the long pipe with drying laundry and the bare windows, which the men had labouriously covered with newspaper to keep out the wind and cold, and wheezed out that he was looking for a certain private named Bertin who was a trainee lawyer and had obviously come to the wrong place. Nearly all of the men had stood up when he came in, as in his fur coat he looked like an officer come to carry out an inspection. But Sergeant Porisch waved this aside and said there was no need for any fuss. He saluted Sergeant Schwerdtlein, put a packet of cigarettes on the table and had everyone won over.
In the meantime, Bertin pulled himself up, looked at the stranger with sleepy eyes and said he was the man he was looking for. At that, Sergeant Porisch explained that although he was from the court martial in Montmédy, he wasn’t there to cause Bertin any trouble, but simply wanted some information for a current case. And as the main purpose of his journey was connected with a secondary purpose, he asked Bertin if he would kindly put his boots back on and accompany him to the station, where a friend of his, also a Berliner, was on duty. At the words ‘Montmédy court martial’ Bertin had brought his feet to the floor and said: ‘Aha.’ Suddenly, he was moving more confidently and within a minute he was standing at the door ready to go.
‘Let’s get one down us,’ wheezed Sergeant Porisch, making a drinking motion with his fist.