All Quiet on the Western Front / На Западном фронте без перемен. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Эрих Мария Ремарк
We could sleep warmly now, if only we weren’t so damned hungry.
Kat asks a gunner who has already been in the area for a while, ‘Is there a canteen anywhere round here?’
He laughs. ‘Not a chance. There’s nothing. You won’t find a crust of bread round here.’
‘Aren’t there any locals left, then?’
He spits. ‘Oh yes, there are one or two. But they just hang around every field kitchen they see and scrounge what they can.’ That’s pretty bad. In that case we’ll just have to tighten our belts and wait until tomorrow when the rations come up.
Then I see Kat putting his cap on. ‘Where are you off to, Kat?’ ‘Just for a sniff around.’ He slopes out.
The gunner grins sarcastically. ‘Sniff away. Mind you don’t strain yourself picking things up.’
We lie down, disappointed, and wonder whether to break into our iron rations[73] or not. But we don’t want to risk being left without. So we try to get a bit of shut-eye instead.
Kropp breaks a cigarette in two and gives me half. Tjaden describes his local speciality, broad beans cooked with bacon. He is scathing about people who try to cook it without the right chopped herbs. But the main thing is that the ingredients have to be cooked together – the potatoes, beans and bacon must not, for God’s sake[74], be cooked separately. Somebody grumbles that he will chop Tjaden into the right herbs if he doesn’t shut up at once. And then it is quiet in the big room. Only a couple of candles flicker in the necks of empty bottles, and the gunner spits from time to time.
We are already dozing a bit when the door opens and Kat appears. I think I am dreaming: he is carrying two loaves under his arm, and a blood-stained sandbag full of horsemeat in his hand.
The gunner’s pipe drops out of his mouth. He feels the bread. ‘Straight up, it’s real bread, and still warm.’
Kat doesn’t say another thing. He has the bread and that is it; nothing else is of any importance. I’m quite sure that if he were dropped in the desert he would get a meal of dates, roast meat and wine together within the hour.
He gives Haie the brief command, ‘Chop some wood.’
From under his coat he brings out a frying-pan, then he takes a handful of salt and a chunk of fat from a pocket – he has thought of everything. Haie gets a fire going on the floor. Its crackling can be heard all through the empty factory. We scramble out of bed.
The gunner isn’t sure what to do. He wonders whether or not to congratulate Kat, so that maybe he will get a share too. But Katczinsky doesn’t even notice him – he might as well be invisible. So he wanders off, swearing.
Kat has the knack of cooking horsemeat so that it is really tender. You mustn’t put it straight into the pan or it will be too tough. It has to be parboiled in a little water beforehand. We sit around in a circle with our knives, and fill our bellies.
That’s Kat. If there were some place where something edible could be found only in one particular hour in the year, then he would turn up precisely during that hour as if led there by some kind of inspiration. He’d put on his cap, go out, make a bee-line for it, and find it.
He can find anything – camp stoves and firewood when it is cold, hay and straw, tables, chairs – but above all he can find food. No one understands how he does it, and it’s as if he conjures it out of thin air. His masterpiece was four cans of lobster. Mind you[75], we would really have preferred dripping[76] instead.
We’ve sprawled out on the sunny side of the camp. It smells of tar, summertime and sweaty feet.
Kat is sitting next to me, because he enjoys a chat. We had an hour of saluting practice this afternoon because Tjaden gave a major a sloppy salute[77]. Kat can’t get over this. ‘Watch out, lads,’ he says, ‘we’ll lose the war because we are too good at saluting.’
Kropp pads across to us barefoot, with his trousers rolled up. He has washed his socks and lays them out on the grass to dry. Kat gazes at the sky, lets off a really loud one, and says dreamily by way of commentary, ‘Every little bean, my boys, makes you make a little noise.’
He and Kropp start to argue. At the same time they manage to bet a bottle of beer on the outcome of a dogfight that is going on between a couple of planes above us.
Kat will not budge from a point of view that he, old soldier that he is, sums up with a little rhyme: ‘Equal rations, equal pay, war’s forgotten in a day —’
Kropp, on the other hand, is more philosophical. He reckons that all declarations of war ought to be made into a kind of festival, with entrance tickets and music, like they have at bullfights. Then the ministers and generals of the two countries would have to come into the ring, wearing boxing shorts, and armed with rubber truncheons, and have a go at each other. Whoever is left on his feet, his country is declared the winner. That would be simpler and fairer than things are out here, where the wrong people are fighting each other.
The idea appeals to us. Then the conversation moves on to drill.
An image comes into my head. Bright midday sunshine on the parade-ground at Klosterberg barracks. The heat is hanging there and the place is quiet. The barracks seem dead. Everything is asleep. All you can hear is the drummers practising – they have set things up somewhere and are practising without much skill, monotonously, mindlessly. What a trio: midday heat, the parade-ground and drummers practising.
The barrack windows are empty and dark. Battledress trousers[78] are hanging out of a few of them, drying. You look enviously across at the barracks, where the rooms are cool —
Oh, you dark and musty platoon huts, with your iron bedsteads, chequered bedding and the tall lockers with those stools in front of them! Even you can turn into objects of longing; seen from out here, you can even take on some of the wonderful aura of home, you great rooms, so full of the smells of stale food, sleep, smoke and clothes!
Katczinsky describes them in glowing colours and with great fervour. What would we not give to be able to go back to those rooms. We don’t dare to think any further than that —
You rifle drills, first thing in the morning! ‘How do you break down a standard-issue rifle?[79]’ You PT sessions in the afternoon! ‘Fall out anyone who can play the piano! Right turn! Report to the kitchens for spud bashing[80]!’
We wallow in our memories. Then Kropp laughs suddenly and says, ‘Change at Lohne!’
That was Corporal Himmelstoss’s favourite game. Lohne is a station where you have to change trains, and so that anyone going on leave[81] did not get lost when he got there, Himmelstoss used to practise changing platforms with us in the barracks. We were supposed to learn that you reach the connecting train in Lohne by way of an underpass. Our beds represented the underpass and everyone had to stand to attention on the left-hand side. Then came the order ‘Change at Lohne!’ and everyone had to scramble as quickly as possible under the bed and out the other side. We practised that for hours on end…
Meanwhile the German plane has been shot down. It plummets, with a trail of smoke behind it like a comet. Kropp has lost a bottle of beer on it, and pays up with ill grace.
‘I’m sure Himmelstoss is quite a quiet chap as a postman,’ I say, once Kropp has got over his disappointment. ‘So how come he is such a bastard as a drill corporal?’
The question gets Kropp going again. ‘It isn’t just Himmelstoss, there are loads of them. As soon as they get a couple of stripes or a pip or two they turn into entirely different people and start behaving as if they chew iron bars for breakfast.’
‘So
iron rations – неприкосновенный запас
for God’s sake – не дай Бог
mind you – имейте в виду, заметьте
dripping
sloppy salute – небрежно поприветствовать
Battledress trousers – солдатские штаны
How do you break down a standard-issue rifle? – Из каких деталей состоит винтовка стандартного образца?
spud bashing – чистка картофеля
on leave – в отпуск