European History Argumentative Essay

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All Quiet on the Western Front

ERICH MARIA REMARQUE

Translated from the German by A. W. WHEEN

BALLANTINE BOOKS' NEW YORK

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TWO ::::= :; ;:::n::

It is strange to think that at home in the drawer of my writing table there lies the beginning of a play called "Saul" and a bundle of poems. Many an evening I have worked over them-we all did something of the kind-but that has become so unreal to me I cannot comprehend it any more. Our early life is cut off from the moment we came here, and that without our lifting a hand. We often try to look back on it and to find an explanation, but never quite succeed. For us young men of twenty everything is extraordinar- ily vague, for Kropp, Miiller, Leer, and for me, for all of us whom Kantorek calls the "Iron Youth." All the older men are linked up with their pre-

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vious life. They have wives, children, occupa- tions, and interests, they have a background which is so strong that the war cannot obliterate it. We young men of twenty, however, have only our parents, and some, perhaps, a girl-that is not much, for at our age the influence of parents is at its weakest and girls have not yet got a hold over us. Besides this there was Iittle-else-c-some enthusiasm, a few hobbies, and our school. Beyond this our life did not extend. And of this nothing remains. Kantorek would say that we stood on the

f threshold of life. And so it would seem. Wehad as yet taken no root. The war swept us away. For

I the others, the older men, it is but an interrup- tion. They are able to think beyond it. We, how- ever, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be. Weknow only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land. Ail the same, we are not often sad.

Though MUllerwould be delighted to have Kern- merich's boots, he is really quite as sympathetic as another who could not bear to think of such a thing for grief. He merely sees things clearly. Were Kemmerich able to make any use of the boots, then MUllerwould rather go bare-foot over barbed wire than scheme how to get hold of

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them. But as it is the boots are quite inappropri- ate to Kemmerich's circumstances, whereas Miiller can make good use of them. Kemmerich will die; it is immaterial who gets them. Why, then, should Miiller not succeed to them? He has more right than a hospitsl orderly. When Kern- merich is dead it will be too late. Therefore MUlIer is already on the watch. We have lost all sense of other considerations,

because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important for us. And good boots are scarce.

Once it was different. When we went to the dis- trict commandant to enlist, we were a class of twenty young men, many of whom proudly shaved for the first time before going to the bar- racks. We had no definite plans for our future. Our thoughts of a career and occupation were as yet of too unpractical a character to furnish any scheme of life. We were stilI crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character. We were trained in the army for ten weeks and in this time more profoundly influenced than by ten years at school. We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer. At first astonished, then embittered, and finally

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indifferent, we recognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill. We became soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they have done everything to knock that out of us. After three weeks it was no longer incomprehen- sible to us that a braided postman should have more authority over us than had formerly our parents, our teachers, and the whole gamut of culture from Plato to Goethe. With our young, awakened eyes we saw that the classical concep- tion of the Fatherland held by our teachers re- solved itself here into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servants-salutes, springing to atten- tion, parade-marches, presenting arms, right wheel, left wheel, clicking the heels, insults, and a thousand pettifogging details. We had fancied our task would be different, only to find we were ~be trained. for. heroism as though we were cir.cus-ponies. But we Soon accustomed ourselves to it. We learned in fact that some of these things were necessary, but the rest merely show. Sol- diers have a line nose for such distinctions.

By threes and fours our class was scattered over the platoons amongst Frisian fishermen, peas- ants, and labourers with whom we soon made

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friends. Kropp, Miiller, Kemmerich, and I went to No.9 platoon under Corporal Himmelstoss. He had the reputation of being the strictest

disciplinarian in the camp, and was ~roud of it. He was a small undersized fellow WIth a foxy, waxed moustache, who had seen twelve years' service and was in civil life a postman. He had a special dislike of Kropp, 'Ijaden, Westhus, and me because he sensed a quiet defiance.i have remade his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time he had some fault to lind and pulled it to pieces. Ihave kneaded a pair of prehistoric boots that were as hard as iron f~r twenty hours-with intervals of course-untli they became as soft as butter and not even Him- melstoss could find anything more to do to them; under his ordera I have scrubbed out the Cor- porals' Mess with a tooth-brush. Kropp and I were given the job of clearing the barrack-square of snow with a hand-broom and a dust-pan, and we would have gone on till we were frozen had not a lieutenant accidentally appeared who sent us off, and hauled Hinlmelstoss over the coals. But the only result of this was to make Himmel. stoss hate us more. For six weeks consecutively I did guard every Sunday and was hut-orderly for the same length of time. With a full pack and rifle Ihave had to practise on a wet, soft, newly. ploughed field the "Prepare to advance, ad-

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vance!" and the "Lie down!" until I was one lump of mud and finally collapsed. Four hours later I had to report to Himmelstoss with my clothes scrubbed clean, my hands chafed and bleeding. Together with Kropp, Westhus, and Tjaden I have stood at attention in a hard frost without gloves for a quarter of an hour at a stretch, while Himmelstoss watched for the slightest movement of our bare fingers on the steel barrel of the rifle. I have run eight times from the top floor of the barracks down to the courtyard in my shirt at two o'clock in the morning because my drawers projected three inches beyond the edge of the stool on which one had to stack all one's things. Alongside me ran the corporal, Himmelstoss, and trod on my bare toes. At bayonet-practice I had constantly to fight with Himmelstoss, I with a heavy iron weapon, whilst he had a handy wooden one with which he easily struck my arms till they were black and blue. Once, indeed, I be- came so infuriated that I ran at him blindly and gave him a mighty jab in the stomach and knocked him down. When he reported me the company commander laughed at him and told him he ought to keep his eyes open; he under- stood Himmelstoss, and apparently was not dis- pleased at his discomfiture. I became a past master on the parallel bars and excelled at physi- cal jerks;-we have trembled at the mere sound

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of his voice, but his runaway post-horse never got the better of us. One Sunday as Kropp and I were lugging a

latrine-bucket on a pole across the barrack-yard, Himmelstoss came by, all polished up and spry for going out. He planted himself in front of us and asked how we liked the job. In spite of our- selves we tripped and emptied the bucket over his legs. He raved, but the limit had been reached. ''That means clink," he yelled. But Kropp had had enough. "There'll be an in-

quiry first," he said, "and then we'll unload." "Mind how you speak to a non-commissioned

officer!" bawled Himmelstoss. "Have you lost your senses? You wait till you're spoken to. What will you do, anyway?" "Show you up, Corporal," said Kropp, his

thumbs in line with the seams of his trousers. Himmelstoss saw that we meant it and went

off without saying a word. But before he disap- peared he growled: "You'll drink this!"-but that was the end of his authority. He tried it on once more in the ploughed field with his ''Prepare to advance, advance" and "Lie down." We obeyed each order, since an order's an order and has to be obeyed. But we did it 80 slowly that Himmel- stoss became desperate. Carefully we went down on our knees, then on our hands, and 80 on; in the

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meantime, quite infuriated, he had given an- other command. But before we had even begun to sweat he was hoarse. After that he left us in peace. He did indeed always refer to us as swine, but there was, nevertheless, a certain respect in his tone. There were many other staff corporals, the

majority of whom were more decent. But above all each of them wanted to keep his good job there as long as possible, and this he could do only by being strict with the recruits.

So we were put through every conceivable re- finement of parade-ground soldiering till we often howled with rage. Many of us became ill through it; Wolf actually died of inflammation of the lung. But we would have felt ridiculous had we hauled down our colours. We became hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, tough-and that was good; for these attributes were just what we lacked. Had we gone into the trenches without this period of training most of us would certainly have gone mad. Ouly thus were we prepared for what awaited us. We did not break down, but adapted ourselves; our twenty years, which made many another thing so grievous, helped us in this. But by far the most important result was that it awakened in us a strong, practical sense of esprit de corps, which in the field developed

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into the finest thing that arose out of the war- comradeship.

I sit by Kemmerich's bed. He is sinking steadily. Around us is great commotion. A hospital train has arrived and the wounded fit to be moved are being selected. The doctor passes by Kemmerich's bed without once looking at him. "Next time, Franz," Isay. He raises himself on the pillow with his

elbows. "They have amputsted my leg." He knows it too then. Inod and answer: "You

must be thankful you've come off with that." He is silent. I resume: "It might have been both legs,

Franz. Wegeler has lost his right arm. That's much worse. Besides, you will be going home." He looks at me. «00 you think so?"

"Of course." "Do you think so?" he repeats. «Sure, Franz. Once you've got over the opera-

tion." He beckons me to bend down. I stoop over him

and he whispers: "I don't think so." "Don't talk rubbish; Franz, in a couple of days

you'll see for yourself. What is it anyway-an amputated leg? Here they patch up far worse things than that."

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He lifts one hand. "Look here though, these fingers." "That's the result of the operation. Just eat de.

cently and you'll soon be well again. Do they look after you properly?" _ He points to a dish that is still half full. I get

excited. "Franz, you must eat. Eating is the main thing. That looks good too." He turns away. After a pause he says slowly:

"I wanted to become a head-forester once." "So you may still," I assure him. "There are

splendid artificial limbs now, you'd hardly know there was anything missing. They are fixed on to the muscles. You can move the fingers and work and even write with an artificial hand. And be- sides, they will always be making new improve- ments." For a while he lies still. Then he says: "You

can take my lace-up boots with you for Milller." I nod and wonder what to say to encourage

him. His lips have fallen away, his mouth has become larger, his teeth stick out and look as though they were made of chalk. ThO)flesh melts, the forehead bulges more prominently, the cheekbones protrude. The skeleton is working it- self through. The eyes are already sunken in. In a couple of hours it will be over. He is not the first that I have seen thus; but

we grew up together and that always makes it a

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bit different. I have copied his essays. At school he used to wear a brown coat with a belt and shiny sleeves. He was the only one of us, too, who could do the giant's turn on the horizontal bar. His hair flew in his face like silk when he did it. Kantorek was proud of him. But he couldn't stand cigarettes. His skin was very white; he had something of the . l~tEim. -rgIance at my hoots. They are big and clumsy, the breeches are tucked into them, and standing up one looks well-built and powerful in these great drainpipes. But when we go hathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are no longer soldiers but little more than boys; no One would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stsnd naked; then we become civilians, and almost reel ourselves to be so. When bathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now-but why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: "That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn't want to die. Let him not die!" My thoughts become confused. This atmos-

phere of carbolic and gangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates. It grows dark. Kemmerich's face changes col-

our, it lifts from the pillow and is SO pale that it gleams. The mouth moves slightly. I draw near to

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him. He whispers: "If you find my watch, send it home--" I do not reply. It is no use any more. No one

can console him. I am wretched with helpless- ness. This forehead with its hollow temples, this mouth that now seems all teeth, this sharp nose! And the fat, weeping woman at home to whom I must write. If only the letter were sent off al- ready! Hospital-orderlies go to and fro with bottles

and pails. One of them comes up, casts a glance at Kemmerich and goes away again. You can see he is waiting, apparently he wants the bed. I bend over Franz and talk to him as though

that could save him: "Perhaps you will go to the convalescent home at Klosterberg, among the villas, Franz. Then you can look out from the win- dow across the fields to the two trees on the hori- zon. It is the loveliest time of the year now, when the corn ripens; at evening the fields in the sun- light look like mother-of-pearl. And the lane of poplars by the Klosterbach, where we used to catch stiCkle-backs! You can build an aquarium again and keep fish in it, and you can go without asking anyone, you can even play the piano if you want to." 1 lean down over his face which lies in the

shadow. He still breathes, lightly. His face is wet ,

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he is crying. What a fine mess I have made of it with my foolish talk! "But Franz" -I put my arm round his shoulder

and put my face against his. "Will you sleep now?" He does not answer. The tears run down his

cheeks. I would like to wipe them away but my handkerchief is too dirty. An hour pasaes. I sit tensely and watch his

every movement in case he may perhaps say something. What if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He doea not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. This is the most disturbing and hard- eat parting that I ever have seen; although it was pretty bad too with Tiecljen, who called for his mother-a big bear of a fellow who, with wild eyes full of terror, held off the doctor from his bed with a dagger until he collapsed. Suddenly Kemmerich groans and begins to

gurgle. I jump up, stumble outside and demand:

"Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?" As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold

of it: "Come quick, Franz Kemmerich is dying."

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He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: "Which will that be?" He says: "Bed 26, amputated thigh." He sniffs: "How should I know anything about

it, I've amputated five legs to-day"; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly "You see to it," and hurries off to the operating room. I tremble with rage as I go along with the or-

derly. The man looks at me and says: "One opera- tion after another since five o'clock this morning. You know, to-day alone there have been sixteen deaths-yours is the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether--" I become faint, all at once I cannot do any

more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again. We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The

face is still wet from the tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons. The or- derly pokes me in the ribs, "Are you taking his things with you?" I nod. He goes on: "We must take him away at once,

we want the bed. Outside they are lying on the floor." I collect Kemmerich's things, and untie his

identification disc. The orderly asks about the paybook. I say that it is probably in the orderly- room, and go. Behind me they are already haul- ing Franz on to a waterproof sheet.

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Outside the door I am aware of the darkness and the wind as a deliverance. I breathe as deep as I can, and feel the breeze in my face, warm and soft as never before. Thoughts of girls, of flowery meadows, of white clouds suddenly come into my head. My feet begin to move forward in my boots, I go quicker, I run. Soldiers pass by me, I hear their voices without understanding. The earth is streaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of my feet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums. My limbs move supplely, I feel my joints strong, I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone. Miiller stands in front of the hut waiting for

me. I give him the boots. We go in and he tries them on. They fit well. He roots among his supplies and offers me a

fine piece of saveloy. With it goes hot tea and rum.

THREE..~..•.•.•...••................ .......... .

Reinfon:ements have arrived. The vacancies have been filled and the sacks of straw in the huts are already booked. Some of them are old hands, but there are twenty-five men of a later draft from the base. They are about two years younger than us. Kropp nudges me: "Seen the in- fants?"

I nod. We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves stone-age veterans.

Katczinsky joins us. We stroll past the horse- boxes and go over to the reinfon:ements, who are already being issued with gas masks and coffee.

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"Long time since you've had anything decent to eat, eh?" Kat asks one of the youngsters. He grimaces. "For breakfast, turnip-bread-

lunch, turnip-stew-supper, turnip-cutlets and turnip-salad." Kat gives a knowing whistle. "Bread made of turnips? You've been in luck,

it's nothing new for it to be made of sawdust. But what do you say to haricot beans? Have some?" The youngster turns red: "You can't kid me." Katczinsky merely says: "Fetch your mess-

tin." We follow curiously. He takes us to a tub be-

side his straw sack. Sure enough it is half full of beef and beans. Katczinsky plants himself in front of it like a general and says: "Sharp eyes and light fingers! That's what the

Prussians say." We are surprised. "Great guts, Kat, how did

you come by that?" I ask him. "Ginger was glad I took it. I gave him three

pieces of parachute-silk for it. Cold beans taste fine, too." Patronizingly he gives the youngster a portion

and says: "Next time you come with your mess-tin have

a cigar or a chew of tobacco in your other hand. Get me?" Then he turns to us. "You get off scot free, of course."

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• • • We couldn't do without Katczinsky; be has a sixth sense. There are such people everywhere but one does not appreciate it at first. Every com- pany has oneor two. Katczinsky is the smartest I know. By trade he is a cobbler, I believe, but that hasn't anything to do with it; he understands all trades. It's a good thing to be friends with him, as Kropp and I are, and Haie Westhus too, more or less. But Haie is rather the executive arm, oper- ating under Kat's orders when things come to blows. For that he has his qualifications. For example, we land at night in some entirely

unknown spot, a sorry hole, that has been eaten out to the very walls. We are quartered in a small dark factory adapted to the purpose. There are beds in it, or rather bunks-a couple of wooden beams overwhich wire netting is stretched. Wire netting is hard. And there's nothing to

put on it. Our waterproof sheets are too thin. We use our blankets to cover ourselves. Kat looks at the place and then says to Haie

Westhus: "Comewith me." They go off to explore. Half an hour later they are back again with arms full of straw. Kat has found a horse-box with straw in it. Now we might sleep if we weren't so terribly hungry.

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Kropp asks an artilleryman who has been some time in this neighbourhood: "Is there a can- teen anywhere aboute?" . "Is there a what?" he laughs. "There's nothing to be had here. You won't find so much as a crust of bread here." "Aren't there any inhabitants here at all

then?" He spite. "Yes, a few. But they hang round the

cook-house and beg." "That's a bad business!-Then we'll have to

pull in our belts and wait till the rations come up in the morning. n But I see Kat has put on his cap. "Where to, Kat?" I ask. "Just to explore the place a bit." He strolls off.

The artilleryman grins scornfully. "Go ahead and explore. But don't strain yourself in carrying what you find." Disappointed we lie down and consider

whether we couldn't have a go at the iron ra- tions. But it's too risky; so we try to get a wink of sleep. Kropp divides a cigarette and hands me half.

Tjaden gives an account of his national dish- broad-beans and bacon. He despises it when not flavoured with bog-myrtle, and, "for God's sake, let it all be cooked together, not the potatoes, the beans, and the bacon separately." Someone

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growls that he will pound 'fjaden into bog.~~e if he doesn't shut up. Then all becomes quiet m the big room-only the candles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles and the artillery- man spitting every now and then. Weare just dozing offwhen the door opens and

Kat appears. I think I must be dreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and a blood- stained sandbag full of horse-flesh in his hand. The artilleryman's pipe drops from his mouth.

He feels the bread. "Real bread, by God, and still hot too?" Kat gives no explanation. He has the bread,

the rest doesn't matter. I'm sure that if he were planted down in the middle of the desert, in half an hour he would have gathered together a sup- per of roast meat, dates, and wine. "Cut some wood," he says curtly to Haie, Then he hauls out a frying pan from under his

coat, and a handful of salt as well as a lump of fat from his pocket. He has thought of everything. Haie makes a fire on the floor. It Iighte up the empty room of the factory. Weclimb out of bed. The artilleryman hesitates. He wonders

whether to praise Kat and so perhaps gain a lit- tle for himself. But Katezinsky doesn't even see him, he might as well be thin air. He goes off cursing. Kat knows the way to roast horse-flesh so that

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it's tender. It shouldn't be put straight into the pan, that makes it tough. It should be boiled first in a little water. With our knives we squat round in a circle and fill our bellies. That is Kat. If for one hour in a year some-

thing eatable were to be had in some one place only, within that hour, as if moved by a vision, he would put on his cap, go out and walk directly there, as though following a compass, and find it. He finds everything-if it is cold, a small

stove and wood, hay and straw, a table and chairs-but above all food. It is uncanny; one would think he conjured it out of the air. His masterpiece was four boxes of lobsters. Admit- tedly we would rather have had a good beef steak.

We have settled ourselves on the sunny side of the hut. There is a smell of tar, of summer, and of sweaty feet. Kat sits beside me. He likes to talk. Today we have done an hour's saluting drill be- cause Tjaden failed to salute a major smartly enough. Kat can't get it out of his head. "You take it from me, we are losing the war

because we can salute too well," he says. Kropp stalks up, with his breeches rolled up

and his feet bare. He lays out his washed socks to dry on the grass. Kat turns his eyes to heaven,

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lets off a mighty fart, and says meditatively: "Every little bean must be heard as well as seen." The two begin to argue. At the same time they

lay a bottle of beer on the result of an air-fight that's going on above us. Katczinsky won't budge from the opinion which as an old Front-hog, he rhymes:

Give' em all the same grub and all the same pay \,/ And the war would be over and done in a do,y.

Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He pro- posesthat a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with c1ube, can have it out among themselves. Who- ever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrange- ment, where the wrong people do the fighting. The subject is dropped. Then the conversation

turns to drill. A picture comes before me. Burning midday in

the barrack-yard. The heat hangs over the square. The barracks are deserted. Every thing sleeps. All one hears is the drummers practising; they have installed themselves somewhere and

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practise brokenly, dully, monotonously. What a concord! Midday heat, barrack square, and drummers beating! The windows of the barracks are empty and

dark. From some of them trousers are hanging to dry. The rooms are cool and one looks toward them longingly. o dark, musty platoon huts, with the iron bed-

steads, the chequered bedding, the lockers and the stools! Even you can become the object of de- sire; out here you have a faint resemblance to home; your rooms, full of the smell of stale food, sleep, smoke, and clothes. Katezinsky paints it all in lively colours, What

wonld We not give to be able to return to it! Far- ther back than that our thoughts dare not go. Those early morning hours of instruction-

"Wh at are the parts of the 98 rifle?"-the midday hours of physical training -"Pianist forward! By the right, quick march. Report to the cook-house for POtato-peeling." We indulge in reminiscences. Kropp laughs

suddenly and says: "Change at Lehne!" . That Was our corporal's favourite game. LOhne IS a railway junction. In order that our fellows gomg on shouldn't get lost there Himmelstoss used to pract· h .'

lBe t e change In the barrack-room. We had to learn that at Lohne, to reacb the

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branch-line, we must pass through a subway. The beds represented the subway and each man stood at attention on the left side of his bed. Then came the command: "Change at Ulhne!" and like light- ning everyone scrambled under the bed to the op- posite side. We practised this for hours on end. Meanwhile the German aeroplane has been

shot down. Like a comet it bursts into a streamer of smoke and falls headlong. Kropp has lost the bottle of beer. Disgruntled he counts out the money from his wallet. "Surely Himmelstoss was a very different fel-

low as a postman," say I, after Albert's disap- pointment" has subsided. "Then how does it come that he's such a bully as a drill-sergeant?" The question revives Kropp, more particularly

as he hears there's no more beer in the canteen. "It's not only Himmelstoss, there are lots of them. As sure as they get a stripe or a star they become different men, just as though they'd swallowed concrete." 'That's the uniform," I suggest. "Roughly speaking it is," says Kat, and pre-

pares for a long speech; "but the root of the mat- ter lies somewhere. For instance, if you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front of him, he'll snap at it, it's his nature. And if you give a man a little bit of

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aU~hority he behaves just the same way, he snaps a~ It too. The things are precisely the same. In himself man is essentially a beast, only he but- ters it over like a slice of bread with a little de. corum, The army is based on that; one man must always have power over the other. The mischief is merely that each one has much too much power. A non-com. can torment a private, a lieu. tenant a non-com., a captain a lieutenant, until he goes mad. And because they know they can, they alI soon acquire the habit more or less. Take a simple case: we are marching back from the parade-ground dog-tired. Then comes the order to sing. We sing spiritlessly, for it is all we can do to trudge along with our rifles. At once the com. pany is turned about and has to do another hour's drill as punishment. On the march back the order to sing is given again, and once more we start. Now what's the use of all that? It's simply that the com1!any commander's head has been turned by having so much power. And n060dybl -,-.- ~es him. ~ contrary, he is praised for

~emg strict. That, of course, is only atrlED.g in- stance, but it holds also in very different affairs. Now I ask you: Let a man be whatever you like In pe t'h ace nne, What occupation is there in which e can behave like that without getting a crack on the nose? He can only do that in the army It goestotheh d f .ea s 0 them all, you see. And the

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more insignjfi~ant a man has been in civil life the worse it takes him,." - "They say, of course, there must be discipline,"

ventures Kropp meditatively. "True," growls Kat, "they always do.And it may

be so; still it oughtn't to become an abuse. But you try to explain that to a black -smith or a labourer or a workman, you try to make that clear to a peas- ant-and that's what most of them are here. All he sees is that he has been put through the mill and sent to the front, but he knows well enough what he must do and what not. It's simply amaz- ing, I tell you, that the ordinary tommy sticks it all up here in the front-line. Simply amazing!" No one protests. Everyone knows that drill

ceases only in the front-line and begins again a few miles behind, with all the absurdities of saluting and parade. It is an Iron law that the soldier must be employed under every circum. stance. Here 'Ijaden comes up with a flushed face. He

is so excited that he stutters. Beaming with satis- faction he stammers out: "Himmelstoss is on his way.He's coming to the front!"

'fjaden has a special grudge against Himmel. stoss, because of the way he educated him in the barracks. Tjaden wets his bed, he does it at night

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in his sleep. Himmelstoss maintained that it was sheer laziness and invented a method worthy of himself for curing 'Ijaden.

He hunted up another piss-a-bed, named Kin. dervater, from a neighbouring unit, and quar- tered him with 'Ijaden, In the huts there were the usual bunks, one above the other in pairs, WIth mattresses or wire netting. Himmelstoss put these two so that one occupied the upper and the other the lower bunk. The man underneath of course had a vile time. The next night they were changed over and the lower one put on top so that he could retaliate. That was Himmelstoss's system of self-education.

The idea was low but not ill-conceived. Unfor- tunately it accomplished nothing because the first assumption was wrong: it was not laziness in either of them. Anyone who looked at their sallow skin could see that. The matter ended in one of them always sleeping on the floor, where he frequently caught cold.

Meanwhile Haie sits down beside us. He winks at me and rubs his paws thoughtfully. We once spent the finest day of our army-life together- the day before we left for the front. We had been allotted to one of the recently formed regiments but were first to be sent back for equipment to the garrison, not to the reinforcement-depot, or

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

course, but to another barracks. We were due to leave the next morning early. In the evening we prepared ourselves to square accounts with Him- melstoss.

Wehad sworn for weeks past to do this. Kropp had even gone 80 far as to propose entering the postal service in peacetime in order to be Him- melstoss's superior when he became a postman again. He revelled in the thought of how he would grind him. It was this that made it impos- sible for him to crush us altogether-we always reckoned that later, at the end of the war, we would have our revenge on him.

In the meantime we decided to give him a good hiding. What could he do to us anyhow if he didn't recognize us and we left early in the morn- ing?

Weknew which pub he used to visit every eve- ning. Returning to the barracks he had to go along a dark, uninhabited road. There we waited for him behind a pile of stones. I had a bed-cover with me. We trembled with suspense, hoping he would be alone. At last we heard his footstep, which we recognized easily, 80 often had we heard it in the mornings as the door flew open and he bawled: "Get up!"

"Alone?" whispered Kropp. nAlone."

Erich Maria Remarque

I slipped round the pile of stones with 'Ijaden, Himmelstoss seemed a little elevated; he was

singing. His belt-buckle gleamed. He came on unsuspectingly. We seized the bed-cover, made a quick leap,

threw it over his head from behind and pulled it round him so that he stood there in a white sack unable to raise his arms. The singing stopped. The next moment Haie Westhus was there, and spreading his arms he shoved us back in order to be first in. He put himself in position with evi- dent satisfaction, raised his arm like a signal. mast and his hand like a coal-shovel and fetched such a blow on the white sack as would have felled an ox. Himmelstoss was thrown down, he rolled five

yards and started to yell. But we were prepared for that and had brought a cushion. Haie squat- ted down, laid the cushion on his knees, felt where Himmelstoss's head was and pressed it down on the pillow. Immediately his voice was muffled. Haie let him get a gasp of air every so often, when he would give a mighty yell that was immediately hushed. '!Jaden unbuttoned Himmelstoss's braces and

pulled down his trousers, holding the whip meantime in his teeth. Then he stood up and set to work.

ALLGillET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

It was a wonderful picture: Himmelstoss on the ground; Haie bending over him with a fiend- ish grin and his mouth open with bloodlust, Him- melstoss's head on his knees; then the convulsed striped drawers, the knock knees, executing at every blow most original movements in the low- ered breeches, and towering over them like a woodcutter the indefatigable Tjaden, In the end we had to drag him away to get our turn. Finally Haie stood Himmelstoss on liis feet

again and gave one last personal remonstrance. As he stretched out his right arm preparatory to giving him a box on the ear he looked as if he were going to reach down a star. Himmelstoss toppled over. Haie stood him up

again, made ready and fetched him a second, well-aimed beauty with the left hand. Himmel- stoss yelled and made off on all fours. His striped postman's backside gleamed in the moonlight. Wedisappeared at full speed. Haie looked round once again and said wrath.

fully,satisfied and rather mysteriously: "Revenge is black-pudding." Himmelstoss ought to have been pleased; his

saying that we should each educate one another had borne fruit for himself. We had become suc- cessful students ofhis method. He never discovered whom he had to thank for

Erich Maria Remarque

the business. At any rate he scored a bed-cover out of it; for when we returned a few hours later to look for it, it was no longer to be found.

That evening'a work made ua more or less con. tent to leave next morning. And an old buffer was pleased to describe us as "young heroes."