‘Not so loud,’ said Pauli. ‘Voices carry in the middle of the night like this. Last night I could hear the stretcherbearers taking the casualties back to the medical post near Regimental HQ, and that’s a long way away, isn’t it?’
‘What about that Englishman in no-man’s-land last week? Did you hear him sobbing?’
‘I heard him cursing,’ said Pauli. They were both speaking in whispers now as they plodded along the trench.
‘That was later,’ said Alex. ‘That was at the end.’
‘Imagine being out there with a leg shot off. Do you ever think about that, Pauli?’
‘No, I never think about it,’ said Pauli. In fact, like all the rest of them, he found that such ideas haunted his thoughts and gave him nightmares. The shouting and weeping of the mortally wounded Englishman had affected all who heard him. Even Leutnant Brand was heard to curse the dying man.
They reached the first sentry. He was standing on the fire step looking over the parapet. Even the farm boys could look heroic in such a pose, cloaked in a muddy blanket and as still as a statue. ‘Any sign of the wiring party?’ Pauli asked.
‘No, Herr Leutnant,’ the sentry answered without turning his head. Sentries soon learned how dangerous it was to make any sort of movement that might be seen by the British snipers. Twice in the last week snipers had killed sentries. Both times the casualties had been men wearing glasses. It was assumed that the moonlight – or in one case a flare – had glinted on the glass. One of the officers had suggested that men with eyeglasses be excused sentry duty, but in a second-rate unit like this, with so many men from lower medical categories, it would have been an unfair burden on the rest of them.
‘No movement anywhere, Herr Leutnant,’ said the sentry.
It was the same at the next sentry, and the next. But this didn’t mean that there was no one out there in the twisted, tangled chaos of no-man’s-land. The British patrols could move silently and swiftly. They used trench knives and clubs. More than once in the last month a British raiding party had come right over into the German front-line trenches and got out again before the alarm could be sounded. They were trying to get an officer prisoner: that was usually the reason for such raids: an officer prisoner and secret papers that might help their intelligence find the place where the German armies joined, for such a place was an ideal one to attack when the big offensive came.
‘Leutnant Brand should never have sent out a wiring party on a night like this,’ said Pauli. ‘It’s too light.’
‘The wire was broken.’
‘The wire is always broken. It’s murder to send men out to mend it on a night like this.’
They turned the corner and started down the ‘old supply line’. These trenches, captured from the British, were poorly made by German standards. The British infantry always improvised them, with only shallow dugout shelters roofed with corrugated iron sheets and none of the deep dugouts that were standard design when the German engineers constructed their front-line positions. No one liked this section of the front line. Apart from the inferior workmanship, the trench system was all the wrong way round: the old fire steps faced east and there were ‘saps’, bombing sections and machine-gun positions all on the wrong side, so that they were vulnerable to enemy gunfire. Worst of all was the smell. This section of the line was littered with ancient corpses that were integrated into the earthworks.
The much-feared Leutnant Brand was standing on the fire step in order to look across the endless shiny mud of no-man’s-land. He wasn’t using a periscope or the pierced steel that offered some protection. He liked to show how fearless he was: he liked to be thought of as brave to the point of madness. ‘Crazy Heini’, the men called him, and he was proud of that nickname – although he would have severely punished anyone heard using it.
He got down from the fire step. ‘Horner! Winter! You’re both late, you’ll go on report.’ They weren’t late of course – they were three minutes early – but there would be nothing gained from arguing with him. The major would, in any case, believe what Brand told him, or at least the major would pretend to believe it. The major was worn out; he did whatever was easiest, and arguing with Brand was heavy going. Brand knew the regulations word for word – he’d learned them when he was a junior NCO – and now the major had long since learned that he was no match for Brand’s sort of ‘lawyer’s talk’.
‘Young officers should be setting an example to the men,’ said Brand. He always said that, but each time he said it as if it was a new, fresh and original observation that should be carefully noted. ‘Horner! You haven’t shaved. You people think that you are a law unto yourselves. You think a Bavarian regiment isn’t good enough for you Prussians. Well, I’ll have to persuade you it is. And if punishment is the only way, then punishment it shall be!’ Brand did everything he could to speak like a gentleman, but when he got excited his Bavarian accent thickened.
Pauli looked at him. When he’d first heard about this Bavarian sergeant major who’d become an officer on the battlefield, he’d expected to see some red-faced, beer-bellied old fellow with a big nose and a huge moustache. But Brand was younger than the other company commanders, slim-hipped and rather handsome. His nose was thin and bony and his forehead high, with trimmed eyebrows and quick, crazy eyes. His eyes moved all the time, as if he was constantly expecting to be assaulted. When he took off his helmet, as he did when looking through the trench periscope, one could see that his hair was not cropped close to the skull in the way that he insisted all the others under his command had their hair cut. Brand’s hair was of medium length and wavy. Somehow, even here in the front line trenches, he always managed to find ways of keeping clean. He wore a long waterproof coat that he’d got from a British-officer prisoner – ‘trenchcoats’, the British called them – and under it his uniform, complete with Iron Cross medal on his pocket, was relatively clean and dry. In his hand Brand carried a riding crop with which he liked to point at people or things, prod soldiers who needed prodding, or simply slap his thigh reflectively. He slapped his thigh with it now.
‘You’re both going to work hard today, my friends. Winter will go back to the village and bring a burial party up to number-three post. It’s time we got rid of those bodies: it stinks down there.’ Slap, slap, went the riding crop against the skirt of the trenchcoat. He turned to Alex and nodded. ‘Horner! The major wants someone to supervise the detail rebuilding the long dugout. It should have been finished two days ago. Hurry them up. I’ll be along later to see what’s happening.’
Pauli said, ‘I’m going back to Divisional Headquarters today, Herr Leutnant. My brother is coming. The major gave permission.’
‘You’ll do as you’re told, Winter. I want those bodies buried tout de suite.’ Leutnant Brand liked to use French phrases; the officers in his cavalry regiment had all done so.
‘My brother is coming from Brussels. The major asked the colonel: it’s all official.’
‘The war is official, too,’ said Brand. He was enjoying himself now. He looked at both of them and gave a grim smile, as if inviting them to join in the fun. Then he slapped the skirt of his trenchcoat with the riding crop. ‘Family reunions take place with the commanding officer’s permission, but even then they are subject to the needs of the military situation. I don’t know if your brother is a slack, good-for-nothing nincompoop like you, Winter. He probably is. But unless he is a complete idiot he’ll know that the army comes first. Right, Winter? Understand now, Winter?’
Leutnant Brand was unusually agitated that morning and the reason for this became clear when the Vizefeldwebel came to report that the wiring party had still not returned. Brand went back to surveying no-man’s-land, but this time he used