03 - Chapter 3. All Quiet on the Western Front.

03 - Chapter 3. All Quiet on the Western Front.  
Considered by many to be the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is the chronicle of a German soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, including the severe physical suffering and emotional trauma that will leave many unable to readjust to civilian life afterward.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of All Quiet on the Western Front by
Eric Maria Remark, translated by Arthur Wesley Ween. This LibriVox
recordings in the public domain. Chapter three. Reinforcements have arrived,
the vacancies have been filled, and the sacks of straw

(00:23):
are already laid out in the huts. 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. Crop nudges me see the infants.
I nod. We stick at our chests, shave in the open,
shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits, and

(00:45):
feel ourselves to be stone age veterans. Kocinski joins us.
We stroll past the horse boxes and go over to
the reinforcements, who have already been issued with gas masks
and coffee. Long time since you've had anything decent to eat,
eh Kat, asks one of the youngsters. He grimaces for breakfast,

(01:08):
turnip bread, lunch, turnip stew, supper, turnip cutlets, and turnip salad.
Cat 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 Herrico,
beans have some? The youngster turns red. You can't kid me.

(01:33):
Kotchinsky merely says, fetch your mess tin. We follow curiously.
He takes us to a tub beside his straw sack.
It is nearly half full of a stew of beef
and beans. Kachinsky plants himself in front of it like
a general and says, sharp eyes and light fingers, that's

(01:53):
what the Prussian say. We are surprised, great guts cat.
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. Grudgingly,
he gives the youngster a portion and says, next time

(02:16):
you come with your mesten, have a cigar or a
chew of tobacco in your other hand. Get me. Then
he turns to us. You get off scott free. Of course,
Kochinsky never goes short. He has a sixth sense. There
are such people everywhere, but one does not appreciate it
at first. Every company has one or two. Kachinsky is

(02:39):
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 Crop and I are, and Hya
vestas too, more or less. But Haya is rather the
executive arm, operating under Cat's orders when things come to blows.

(03:01):
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 over which wire netting is stretched. Wire

(03:25):
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 hyovestus come with me. They go off to explore.
Half an hour later they are back again with arms
full of straw. Cat has found a horse box with

(03:47):
straw in it. Now we might sleep if he weren't
so terribly hungry. Krop asks lartilleryman, who has been some
time in this neighborhood. Is there a canteen anywhereabouts? His
the garol what he laughs, there's nothing to be had here.
You won't find so much as a crust of bread here.

(04:08):
Aren't there any inhabitants here at all? Then he spits, yes,
a couple, but they mostly loaf around the cookhouse, 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. But I see cat Is put on
his cap. Where to cat? I ask, Just to explore

(04:30):
the place a bit. He strolls off. The artilleryman grins scornfully.
Let him explore, but don't be too hopeful about it. Disappointed,
we lie down and consider whether we couldn't have a
go at the iron rations. But it's too risky, so
we try to get a wink of sleep. Crop divides

(04:51):
a cigarette and hands me half. Tiadden gives an account
of his national dish, broad beans and bacon. He despises
it when not flavored with bog myrtle, and for God's sake,
let it all be cooked together, not the potatoes, the beans,
and the bacon separately. Some one growls that he will
pound chouten into bog myrtle if he doesn't shut up.

(05:15):
Then all becomes quiet in the big room, only the
candles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles,
and the artillery men spitting. Every now and then we
stir a bit as the door opens and Cat appears.
I think I must be dreaming. He has two loaves
of bread under his arm, and a blood stained sand
bag full of horse flesh in his hand. The artillery

(05:37):
man's pipe drops from his mouth. He feels the bread,
real bread by God, and still hot too. Cat 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 a desert in half an hour, he would
have gathered together a supper of roast meat, dates and wine.

(06:00):
Cut some wood, he says curtly to Haya. 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. Hia
makes a fire on the floor. It lights up the
empty room of the factory. We climb out of bed.
The artilleryman hesitates. He wonders whether to praise Cat and

(06:24):
so perhaps gain a little for himself. But Katchinsky doesn't
even see him. He might as well be thin air.
He goes off, cursing. Cat knows the way to roast
horse flesh so that 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.

(06:45):
We squat round in a circle and fill our bellies.
That is Cat, if for but one hour in a year,
something 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.

(07:06):
He finds everything if it's 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. Admittedly,
we would rather have had a good beefsteak. We have

(07:29):
settled ourselves on the sunny side of the hut. There
is a smell of tar, of summer, and of sweaty feet.
Cat sits beside me. He wants to talk today. We
have been practicing saluting because Tiadan failed to salute a
major Cat can't get it out of his head. You see,

(07:49):
we are losing the war because we can salute too well,
he says. Crop stalks up with his breeches rolled up
and his feet bare. He lays out his washed sock
to dry on the grass. Kat turns his eyes to heaven,
lets off a mighty fart, and says, apologetically, every little
beam must be heard as well as seen. The two

(08:13):
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. Kotchinsky won't budge from the opinion,
which as an old front hog, he rhymes, give them
all the same grub and all the same pay, and
the war would be over and done in a day. Crop,
on the other hand, is a thinker. He proposes that

(08:37):
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 clubs,
can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives his country wins.
That would be much simpler and more just than this

(08:59):
arrangement where the wrong people do the fighting. The subject
is dropped, then the conversation turns to drill. A picture
comes before me, burning mid day in the barrack yard.
The heat hangs over the square. The barracks are deserted,
everything sleeps. All one hears is the drummers practicing. They

(09:22):
have installed themselves anywhere and practice 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. Oh, dark, musty platoon huts,

(09:47):
with the iron bedsteads, the checkered bedding, the lockers and
the stools. Even you can become the object of desire.
Out here You have a fat resemblance to home, your
rooms full of the smell of stale food, sleep, smoke,
and clothes. Kachinsky paints it all in lively colors. What

(10:08):
would we not give to be able to go back
to it? But we must not pursue that line of
thought any further. Those early morning hours of instruction, what
are the parts of the ninety eight rifle. The midday
hours of physical training, pianist forward by the right, quick march,
report to the cook. Hows for potato peeling. We indulge

(10:32):
in reminiscences. Kropp laughed suddenly and says, change at Luna.
That was our corporal's favorite game. Luna is a railway junction.
In order that our fellows going on leave shouldn't get
lost there, Himmelstaus used to practice the change in the
barrack room. We had to learn that at Luna, to

(10:53):
reach the branch line we must pass through a subway.
The beds represented the subway, and each man's stood at
attention on the left side of his bed. Then came
to command change at Luna, and like lightning, everyone scrambled
under the bed to the opposite side. We practiced this
for a whole hour. Meanwhile, the German aeroplane has been

(11:16):
shot down like a comet. It bursts into a streamer
of smoke and falls headlong. Krop has lost the bottle
of beer. Disgruntled, he counts out the money from his wallet.
Surely Himmelstas was a very different fellow as a postman,
say I. After Albert's disappointment has subsided, then how does

(11:37):
it come that he's such a bully as a drill sergeant.
The question revives Krop more, particularly as he hears there's
no more beer in the canteen. It's not only hamilstas
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.

(12:02):
Roughly speaking, it is, says Kat and prepares for a
long speech. But the root of the matter lies elsewhere.
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 authority,
he behaves just the same way. He snaps at it too.

(12:26):
The things are precisely the same. In himself, man is
essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a
slice of bread with a little decorum. 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,

(12:47):
a lieutenant, a non com a captain, a lieutenant until
he goes mad. And because they know they can, they
all soon acquire the habit more or less. Take a
simple case, are marching back from the prey ground dog tired.
Then comes the order to sing. We are glad enough
to be able to trail arms, but we sing spiritlessly.

(13:10):
At once the company 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 company commander's head has been turned by
having so much power, and nobody blames him. On the contrary,

(13:31):
he is praised for being strict. That, of course, is
only a trifling instance. But it holds also in very
different affairs. Now I ask you, let a man be
whatever you like in peacetime. What occupation is there in
which he can behave like that without getting a crack
on the nose. He can only do that in the army.

(13:52):
It goes to the heads of all of them, you see.
And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life,
the worst it takes him. They say, of course, there
must be discipline, ventures crop meditatively, true growls cat They
always do, and it may be so still it ought

(14:12):
to become an abuse. But you try to explain that
to a blacksmith or a laborer or workman. You try
to make that clear to a simple tommy. And that's
what most of them are here. All he understands is
that he has been properly trained, so that when he
comes up to the front, he thinks he knows exactly
what he should do in every circumstances and what not.

(14:35):
It's simply amazing. I tell you that the ordinary soldier
survives so long 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

(14:57):
every circumstance. Here Chadden comes up with a flushed face.
He is so excited that he stutters, beaming with satisfaction.
He stammers out Himostos is on his way. He's coming
to the front. Chadden has a special grudge against Timilstos
because of the way he educated him in the barracks,

(15:18):
Chadden wets his bed. He does it at night in
his sleep. Himistos maintained that it was sheer laziness and
invented a method worthy of himself for curing Todden. He
hunted up another pissa bed named Kindervader from a neighboring hut,
and quartered him with Chadden. In the huts there were
the usual bunks, one above the other in pairs, the

(15:41):
mattresses of wire netting Himilstos put these two so that
one occupied the upper and the other the lower bunk.
The man underneath was, of course disgusted. The next night
they were changed over and the lower one put on
top so that he could retaliate. That was Himmelstos's system
of self education. The idea was low, but not ill conceived. Unfortunately,

(16:06):
it accomplished nothing because the first assumption was wrong. It
was not laziness in either of them. Any One 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, Hya sits down beside us.
He winks at me and rubs his paws thoughtfully. We

(16:29):
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, of course, but to another barracks.
We were due to leave next morning. Early in the evening,

(16:52):
we prepared ourselves to square accounts with Himmelstas. We had
sworn for weeks past to do this. Crop had even
gone so far as to propose entering the postal service
in peacetime in order to be Himmelstas's superior. When he
became a postman again, he reveled in the thought of
how he would grind him. It was this that made

(17:14):
it impossible for him to crush us all together. 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 the next morning. We knew which

(17:35):
pub he used to visit every evening. 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, so often had we heard it

(17:57):
in the mornings. As the door flew open, and he bawled,
Get up alone, whispered kropp alone. I slipped round the
pile of stones with teadden himilstas seemed a little elevated,
he was singing. His belt buckle gleamed. He came on unsuspectingly.

(18:17):
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,
Hyavestus was there, and, spreading out his arms, he shoved
us back in order to be first in. He put
himself in position, with evident satisfaction, raised his arm like

(18:39):
a signal mast, and his hand like a coal shovel,
and fetched such a blow on the white sack as
would have felt an ox himilstos was thrown down, he
rolled five yards and started to yell. But we were
prepared for that and had brought a cushion. Hyas squatted down,
laid the cushion on his knees, felt where heilmost US's

(19:00):
head was, and pressed it down on the pillow. Immediately
his voice was muffled. Hia let him get a gasp
of air every so often when he would give a
mighty yell that was immediately hushed. Tiadden unbuttoned Himmelstas's braces
and pulled down his trousers, holding the whip meantime in
his teeth. Then he stood up and set to work.

(19:23):
It was a wonderful picture Hemistaus on the ground, Hya
bending over him with a fiendish grin and his mouth
open with bloodlust. Hemistas's head on his knees, then the
convulsed striped drawers the knock knees, executing at every blow
most original movements in the lower breeches, and towering over
them like a woodcutter, the indefagotable Chadden. In the end

(19:48):
we had to drag him away to get our turn. Finally,
Hyas stood Himilstaus on his feet again and gave one
last personal remonstrance as he stretched out his right arm,
preparatory to give him a box on the ear. He
looked as if he were going to reach down a
star Himilstos staggered, highest stood him up again, made ready,

(20:09):
and fetched him a second well aimed beauty with the
left hand Himilstos yelled and fell down on all fours, cursing.
His striped postman's backside gleamed in the moonlight. We disappeared
at full speed. Haya looked round once again and said,
wrathfully satisfied and rather mysteriously revenge his black pudding Himilstos

(20:34):
ought to have been pleased. His saying that we should
each educate one another had borne fruit for himself. We
had become successful students of his method. He never discovered
whom he had to thank for 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's work

(20:58):
made us more or less content to leave next time morning,
and an old buffer was pleased to describe us as
young heroes. End of Chapter three