04 - Chapter 4. All Quiet on the Western Front.

04 - Chapter 4. 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 four of All Quiet on the Western Front by
Eric Maria Remark, translated by Arthur Wesley Ween. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Chapter four. We have
to go up on wiring fatigue. The motor lorries roll

(00:21):
up after dark. We climb in. It is a warm evening,
and the twilight seems like a canopy, under whose shelter
we feel drawn together. Even the stingy Chadden gives me
a cigarette and then a light. We stand jammed in together,
shoulder to shoulder. There is no room to sit. But

(00:41):
we do not expect that Mueller is in a good mood,
for once he is wearing his new boots. The engines drone,
the lorries bump and rattle, The roads are worn and
full of holes. We dare not show a light, so
we lurch along and are often almost pitched out. That
does not worry us, however, it can happen if it likes.

(01:04):
A broken arm is better than a hole in the guts,
and many a man would be thankful enough for such
a chance of finding his way home again. Beside us
stream the munition columns in long files. They are making
the pace. They overtake us. Going forward, we joke with them,
and they answer back. A wall becomes visible. It belongs

(01:27):
to a house which lies on the side of the road.
I suddenly prick up my ears. Am I deceived again?
I hear distinctly the cackle of geese. A glance at Kachinsky,
A glance from him to me. We understand one another. Kat,
I hear some aspirants for the frying pan over there.

(01:49):
He nods, it will be attended to when we come back.
I have their number, of course, Kat has their number.
He knows all about every leg of goose within a
radius of fifteen miles. The lorries arrive at the artillery lines.
The gun emplacements are camouflaged with bushes against aerial observation,

(02:11):
and look like a kind of military feast of the tabernacles.
These branches might seem gay and cheerful. We're not cannon embowered. There.
The air becomes acrid with the smoke of the guns
and the fog. The fumes of powdered taste bitter on
the tongue. The roar of the guns makes our lorry stagger.
The reverberation rolls raging away to the rear. Everything quakes,

(02:36):
our faces change imperceptibly. We are not indeed in the
front line, but only in the reserves. Yet in every
face can be read this is the front, now we
are within its embrace. It is not fear men who
have been up as often as we have become thick skinned.

(02:56):
Only the young recruits are agitated. Cadogs plains to them
that was a twelve inch. You hear the explosion first,
and afterwards comes the sound of the gun. But the
hollow sound of the firing does not reach us. It
is swallowed up in the general murmur of the front.
Cat listens, There'll be a bombardment tonight. We all listen.

(03:21):
The front is restless. The Tommies are firing already, says Crop.
The shelling can be heard distinctly. It is the English
batteries to the right of our section. They are beginning
an hour too soon, according to us. They start punctually
at ten o'clock. What's got them, says Muller. Their clocks

(03:43):
must be fast. There'll be a bombardment. I tell you,
I can feel it in my bones. Cat shrugs his shoulders.
Three shells land beside us. The burst of flames shoots
across the fog, the fragments howled, and we shiver and
are glad to think that we shall be back in

(04:03):
the huts early in the morning. Our faces are neither
paler nor more flush than usual. They are not more
tense nor more flabby, And yet they are changed. We
feel that in our blood a contact is shot home.
That is no figure of speech, It is fact. It

(04:23):
is the Front, the consciousness of the Front, that makes
this contact. The moment that the first shells whistle over
and the air is rent with the explosions, there is
suddenly in our veins, in our hands, in our eyes,
a tense waiting, a watching, a heightened alertness, a strange
sharpening of the senses. The body, with one bound is

(04:45):
in full readiness. It often seems to me as though
it were the vibrating, shuddering air that, with a noiseless
leap springs upon us, or as though the Front itself
emitted an electric current which awakened unknown nerves. Sets Every
time it is the same. We start out for the front,
plain soldiers, either cheerful or gloomy. Then come the first

(05:10):
gun emplacements, and every word of our speech has a
new ring. When Cat stands in front of the hut
and says there'll be a bombardment. That is merely his
own opinion. But if he says it here, then the
sentence has the sharpness of a bayonet in the moonlight.
It cuts clean through the thought. It thrusts nearer and

(05:30):
speaks to this unknown thing that is awakened in us,
a dark meaning, there will be a bombardment. Perhaps it
is our inner and most secret life that shivers and
falls on guard. To me, the front is a mysterious whirlpool.
Though I am in still water, far away from its center,

(05:52):
I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly,
inescapably into itself from the earth, Earth, from the air.
Sustaining forces pour into us, mostly from the earth. To
no man does the earth mean so much as to
the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long

(06:13):
and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs
deepen her from the fear of death by shell fire.
Then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother.
He stifles his terror and his cries in her silence
and her security. She shelters him and gives him a
new lease of ten seconds of life, receives him again

(06:35):
and often forever. Earth, Earth, Earth, Earth, with thy folds,
hollows and holes into which a man may fling himself
and crouch down in the spasm of terror, under the
hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of the explosions,
O Earth, Thou grantest us the great resisting surge of

(06:57):
new won life. Our being, almost utterly carried away by
the fury of the storm, streams back through our hands
from thee, and we thy redeemed ones, bury ourselves in thee,
and through the long minutes, in a mute agony of hope,
bite into thee with our lips. At the sound of
the first droning of the shells, we rush back in

(07:19):
one part of our being a thousand years by the
animal instinct that has awakened in us, we are led
and protected. It is not conscious. It is far quicker,
much more sure, less fallible than consciousness. One cannot explain it.
A man is walking along without thought or heed. Suddenly

(07:40):
he throws himself down on the ground, and a storm
of fragments fly harmlessly over him. Yet he cannot remember
either to have heard the shell coming, or to have
thought of flinging himself down. But had he not abandoned
himself to the impulse, he would now be a heap
of mangled flesh. It is this other, this second sight

(08:02):
in us, that has thrown us to the ground and
saved us without our knowing how. If it were not so,
there would not be one man alive. From Flanders to
the Voge. We march up, moody or good tempered soldiers.
We reach the zone where the front begins and become
on the instant human animals. An indignate looking wood receives us.

(08:28):
We pass by the soup kitchens under cover of the wood.
We climb out. The lorries turn back. They are to
collect us again. In the morning. Before dawn, mist and
the smoke of guns lie breast high over the fields.
The moon is shining along the road. Troops file their helmets,

(08:48):
gleam softly in the moonlight. The heads and the rifles
stand out above the white mist, nodding heads, rocking carriers
of guns. Farther on, the mist ends. Here the heads
become figures. Coats, trousers, and boots appear out of the
mist as from a milky pool. They become a column.

(09:10):
The column marches on straight ahead, the figures resolve themselves
into a block. Individuals are no longer recognizable. The dark
wedge presses onward, fantastically, topped by the heads and weapons
floating off on the milky pool. A column not men
at all, guns amunitions, wagons are moving along a cross road.

(09:34):
The backs of the horses shine in the moonlight. Their
movements are beautiful. They toss their heads and their eyes gleam.
The guns and the wagons float before the dim background
of the moonlit landscape. The riders in their steel helmets
resemble nights of a forgotten time. It is strangely beautiful
and arresting. We push on to the Pioneer dump. Some

(09:58):
of us load our shoulders with pointed and twisted iron stakes.
Others thrust smooth iron rods through rolls of wire and
go off with them. The burns are awkward and heavy.
The ground becomes more broken. From ahead, come warnings. Look
out deep shell hole on the left mind trenches. Our

(10:20):
eyes peer out, our feet and our sticks feel in
front of us before they take the weight of the body.
Suddenly the line halts. I bump my face against the
roll of wire carried by the man in front. And curse.
There are some shell smashed lorries in the road. Another
order cigarettes and pipes out. We are getting near the line.

(10:44):
In the meantime it has become pitch dark. We skirt
a small wood and then have the front line immediately
before us. An uncertain red glows spreads along the sky
line from one end to the other. It is perpetual movement,
punctuated with the bursts of flame from the muzzles of
the batteries. Balls of light rise up high above it,

(11:08):
silver and red spheres which explode and rain down in
showers of red, white and green stars. French rockets go up,
which unfold a silk parachute to the air and drift
slowly down. They light up everything as bright as day.
Their light shines on us and we see our shadows
sharply outlined on the ground. They hover for the space

(11:30):
of a minute before they burn out. Immediately, fresh ones
shoot up to the sky and again green, red, and
blue stars. Bombardment, says cat. The thunder of the gun
swells to a single heavy roar, and then breaks up
again into separate explosions. The dry bursts of the machine

(11:51):
guns rattle above us. They are teams with invisible swift
movement with howls, pipings, and hisses are the smaller shells,
and amongst them, booming through the night like an organ,
go the great coal boxes and the heavies. They have
a hoarse, distant bellow, like a running stag, and make

(12:12):
their way high above the howl and whistle of the
smaller shells. It reminds me of flocks of wild geese
when I hear them. Last autumn. The wild geese flew
day after day across the path of the shells. The
searchlights begin to sweep the dark sky. They slide along
it like gigantic tapering rulers. One of them pauses and

(12:35):
quivers a little. Immediately a second is beside him. A
black insect is caught between them and tries to escape.
An airman he hesitates, is blinded and falls. At regular intervals.
We ram in the iron stakes. Two men hold a
roll and the others spool off the barbed wire. It

(12:57):
is that awful stuff with close set long spikes. I
am not used to unrolling it and tear my hand.
After a few hours it is done, but there is
still some time before the lorries come. Most of us
lie down and sleep. I try also, but it has
turned too chilly. Near to the sea, one is constantly

(13:20):
waked by the cold. Once I fall fast asleep, then
waking suddenly with a start. I do not know where
I am. I see the stars, I see the rockets,
and for a moment have the impression that I have
fallen asleep but a garden fete. I don't know whether
it is morning or evening. I lie in the pale

(13:41):
cradle of the twilight and listen for soft words, which
will come soft and near. Am I crying? I put
my hand to my eyes. It is so fantastic. Am
I a child? Smooth skin? It lasts only a second,
and then I reckonies The silhouette of Kachinsky, the old veteran.

(14:04):
He sits quietly and smokes his pipe, a covered pipe,
of course. When he sees I'm awake, he says, that
will give you a fright. It was only a nosecap.
It landed in the bushes over there. I sit up.
I feel myself strangely alone. It's good. Cat is there.
He gazes thoughtfully at the front and says, mighty fine fireworks,

(14:28):
if they weren't so dangerous. One lands behind us, two
recruits jump up terrified. A couple of minutes later another
comes over nearer. This time kat knocks out his pipe.
It makes a glow, then it begins in earnest. We
crawl away as well as we can in our haste.

(14:50):
The next lands fair among us. Two fellows cry out.
Green rockets shoot up on the skyline, barrage, the mud flies,
high fragment whiz past. The crack of the guns is
heard long after the roar of the explosions. Beside us
lies a fair headed recruit in utter terror. He has

(15:10):
buried his face in his hands. His helmet has fallen off.
I fish hold of it and try to put it
back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off,
and like a child, creeps under my arm, his head
close to my breast. The little shoulders heave shoulders, just
like camericks. I let him be, so that the helmet

(15:33):
should be of some use. I stick it on his behind,
not for a jest, but out of consideration, since that
is his highest part. And though there is plenty of
meat there, a shot in it can be damned painful. Besides,
a man has to lie a whole month on his
belly in the hospital, and afterwards he would be almost
sure to have a limp. It's got someone pretty badly.

(15:58):
Cries are heard between the explosion. At last, it grows quiet.
The fire has lifted over us and is now dropping
on the reserves. We risk a look. Red rockets shoot
up to the sky. Apparently there's an attack coming where
we sit. It is still quiet. I sit up and

(16:19):
shake the recruit by the shoulder. All over, kid, it's
all right this time. He looks round him dazedly. You'll
get used to it soon, I tell him. He sees
his helmet and puts it on. Gradually he comes too.
Then suddenly he turns fiery red and looks confused. Cautiously.

(16:41):
He reaches his hand to his behind and looks at
me dismally. I understand at once, gun shy, that wasn't
the reason I it stuck his helmet over it. That's
no disgrace, I reassure him. Manny's the man before you
has had his pants full after the first bombardment. Go
behind that bush there and throw your underpants away. Get along,

(17:06):
He goes off. Things become quieter, but the cries do
not cease. What's up Albert, I ask couple of columns
over there, have got it in the neck. The cries continue.
It is not men. They could not cry so terribly
wounded horses, said Kat. It's unendurable. It is the moaning

(17:30):
of the world. It is the martyred creation, wild with anguish,
filled with terror and groaning. We are pale. Dating stands
up God, for God's sake, shoot them. He is a
farmer and very fond of horses. It gets under his skin. Then,
as if deliberately, the fire dies down again. The screaming

(17:53):
of the beasts becomes louder. One can no longer distinguish.
Whence in this now quiet, sol landscape it comes ghostly, invisible.
It is everywhere between heaven and earth. It rolls on immeasurably,
datering raves and yells out, shoot them, shoot them, can't
you damn you again? They must look after the men first,

(18:18):
says Kat quietly. We stand up and try to see
where it is. If we could only see the animals,
we should be able to endure it better. Mueller has
a pair of glasses. We see a dark group bears
with stretchers and large black clumps moving about. Those of
the wounded horses, but not all of them. Some gallop

(18:40):
away in the distance, fall down and then run on farther.
The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out.
He becomes tangled in them and falls. Then he stands
up again. Datering raises his gun and aims cat hits
it up in the air. Are you mad? Trembles and

(19:00):
throws his rifle on the ground. We sit down and
hold our ears. But this appalling noise, these groans and
screams penetrate. They penetrate everywhere. We can bear almost anything,
But now the sweat breaks out on us. We must
get up and run no matter where, but where these

(19:21):
cries can no longer be heard. And it is not men,
only horses from the dark group stretchers move off again.
Then single shots crack out. The black heap as convulsed
and becomes thinner at last. But still it is not
the end. The men cannot overtake the wounded beasts, which

(19:45):
fly in their pain, their wide open mouths full of anguish.
One of the men goes down on his knee a shot.
One horse drops another. The last one props himself on
his forelegs and drags himself round in a circle, a
merry go round squatting. It drags round in circles on
its stiffened forelegs. Apparently its back is broken. The soldier

(20:08):
runs up and shoots it, slowly, humbly. It sinks to
the ground. We take our hands from our ears. The
cries are silenced. Only a long, drawn, dying sigh still
hangs on the air. Then again, only the rockets, the
singing of the shells, and the stars, and they shine

(20:29):
out wonderfully. Dating walks up and down, cursing, like to
know what harm they've done. He returns to it once again.
His voice is agitated. It sounds almost dignified as he says,
I tell you it is the violess baseness to use
horses in the war. We go back. It is time

(20:53):
we return to the lorries. The sky is becoming a
bit brighter. Three o'clock in the morning is fresh and cool.
The pale hour makes our faces look gray. We trudge
onward in a single file through the trenches and shell holds,
and come again to the zone of mist. Kotchinsky is restive.

(21:13):
That's a bad sign. What's up, cat, says krop I
wish I were back home. Home, he means the huts.
It won't last much longer. Cat he is nervous. I
don't know, I don't know. We come to the communications trench,
and then to the open fields. The little wood reappears.

(21:37):
We know every foot of ground here, there's the cemetery
with the mounds and the black crosses. That moment it
breaks out behind us, swells, roars, and thunders. We duck down.
A cloud of flame shoots up one hundred yards ahead
of us. The next minute, under a second explosion, part
of the wood rises slowly in the air. Four trees

(22:00):
sail up and then crash to pieces. The shells begin
to hiss like safety valves. Heavy fire. Take cover, Yell,
somebody cover. The fields are flat. The wood is too
distant and dangerous. The only cover is the graveyard and
the mounds. We stumble across in the dark, and as

(22:21):
though spirited away, every man lies glued behind a mound.
Not a moment too soon, the dark goes mad. It
heaves and raves. Darkness is blacker than the night, rush
on us with giant strides over us and away. The
flames of the explosions light up the graveyard. There is

(22:41):
no escape anywhere. By the light of the shells, I
try to get a view of the fields. They are surging,
sea daggers, aflame from the explosions leap up like fountains.
It is impossible for anyone to break through it. The
wood vanishes, it is pounded, crushed, torn to pieces. We

(23:01):
must stay here in the graveyard. The earth bursts before us.
It rains clods. I feel a smack. My sleeve is
torn away by a splinter. I shut my fist. No pain.
Still that does not reassure me. Wounds don't hurt till afterwards.
I feel the arm all over. It is grazed, but sound.

(23:25):
Now a crack on the skull. I begin to lose
consciousness like lightning. The thought comes to me, don't faint.
Sink down in the black broth and immediately come up
to the top again. A splinter slashes into my helmet,
but has travels so far that it does not go through.
I wipe the mud out of my eyes. A hole

(23:46):
is torn up in front of me. Shells hardly ever
land in the same hole twice. I'll get into it
with one bound. I fling myself down and lie on
the earth as flat as a fish. There it whistles again. Quickly,
I crouch together, claw for cover, feel something on the left,
shove him beside it. It gives way. I groan, The

(24:08):
earth leaps. The blast thunders in my ears. I creep
under the yielding thing, cover myself with it, draw it
over me. It is wood cloth, cover, cover, miserable cover
against the whizzing splinters. I open my eyes, my fingers
grasp a sleeve, an arm, A wounded man, I yelled

(24:31):
to him, no answer, a dead man. My hand gropes
farther splinters of wood. Now I remember again that we
are lying in the graveyard. But the shelling is stronger
than everything. It wipes out the sensibilities. I merely crawl
still deeper into the coffin. It should protect me, and

(24:53):
especially as death himself lies in it too. Before me
gapes the shell hole, I grasped with my eyes as
with fists. With one leap, I must be in it.
There I get a smack in the face. A hand
clamps on to my shoulder as the dead man waked up.
The hand shakes me. I turn my head. In the

(25:16):
second of light, I stare into the face of koatchinsky.
He has his mouth wide open and is yelling. I
hear nothing. He rattles me, comes nearer. In a momentary lull,
his voice reaches me. Guess, guess, guess, pass it on.
I grab for my gas mask. Some distance from me,

(25:37):
there lies someone. I think of nothing but this, that
feddle there must know guas guas I call. I lean
toward him. I sweep at him with a satchel. He
doesn't see. Once again, again he merely ducks. It's a recruit.
I look at kat desperately. He has his mask red.

(26:00):
I pull out mine too. My helmet falls to one side.
It slips over my face. I reach the man. His
satchel is on the side nearest me. I seize the mask,
pull it over his head. He understands. I let go,
and with a jump, drop back into the shell hole.
The dull thud of the gas shells mingles with the

(26:21):
crashes of the high explosives. A bell sounds between the explosions,
gongs and meadow clappers, warning everyone gas gas gas. Someone
plumps down behind me another. I wipe the goggles of
my mask clear of the moist breath. It is cat
crop and someone else All four of us lie there

(26:43):
in heavy, watchful suspense and breathe as lightly as possible
these first minutes with the mask to side between life
and death. Is it tightly woven? I remember the awful
sights in the hospital, the gas patients who, in day
long suffocation, cough their burnt lungs up in clots cautiously,

(27:06):
the mouth applied to the valve. I breathe. The gas
still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows,
like a big, soft jellyfish. It floats into our shell
hole and lulls there obscenely. I nudge Cat. It is
better to crawl out and lie on top than to
stay here where the gas collects most. But we don't

(27:26):
get as far as that. A second bombardment begins. It
is no longer as though the shells roared. It is
the earth itself raging with a crash. Something black bears
down on us. It lands close beside us, A coffin
thrown up. I see Cat move, and I crawl across.

(27:47):
The coffin has hit the fourth man in our hole
on his outstretched arm. He tries to tear off his
gas mask with the other hand, Crop seizes him just
in time, twists the hand sharply behind his back and
holds it fast. Cat and I proceed to free the
wounded arm. The coffin lid is loose and bursts open.
We are easily able to pull it off. We toss

(28:09):
the corpse out. It slides down to the bottom of
the shell hole. Then we try to loosen the under part. Fortunately,
the man swoons and Crop is able to help us.
We no longer have to be careful, but work away
till the coffin gives with a sigh. Before the spade
that we have dug in under it, it has grown lighter.

(28:30):
Cat takes a piece of the lid, places it under
the shattered arm, and we wrap all our bandages round it.
For the moments we can do no more. Inside the
gas mask, my head booms and roars. It is nigh bursting.
My lungs are tight, they breathe always the same hot
used up air. The veins of my temples are swollen.

(28:52):
I feel I am suffocating. A grade. Light filters through
to us. I climb out over the edge of the
shell hole. In the dirty twilight lies a leg torn
clean off. The boot is quite whole. I take that
all in at a glance. Now someone stands up a
few yards distant. I polish the windows in my excitement.

(29:15):
They are immediately dimmed again. I peer through them. The
man there no longer wears his mask. I wait some seconds.
He has not collapsed. He looks around and makes a
few paces, rattling in my throats. I tear my mask
off too, and fall down. The air streams into me
like cold water. My eyes are bursting. The wave sweeps

(29:38):
over me and extinguishes me. The shelling has ceased. I
drag myself to the crater and tell the others. They
take off their masks. We lift up the wounded man,
one taking his splintered arm, and so we stumble off hastily.
The graveyard is a mass of wreckage. Coffins and corpses

(29:59):
lie strewn. They have been killed once again, but each
of them that was flung up saved one of us.
The hedge is destroyed. The rails of the light railway
are torn up and rise stiffly in the air in
great arches. Some one lies in front of us. We stop.
Krop goes on alone with the wounded man. The man

(30:21):
on the ground is a recruit. His hip is covered
with blood. He is so exhausted that I feel for
my water bottle, where I have rum and tea. Cat
restrains my hand and stoops over him. Where's a gotcha, comrade?
His eyes move, he is too weak to answer. We
cut off his trousers carefully. He groans gently gently. It

(30:45):
is much better if he has been hid in the stomach.
He oughtnt to drink anything. There's no vomiting. That's a
good sign. We lay the hip bare. It is one
mass of mincemeat and bone splinters. The joint has been hit.
This lad won't walk any more. I wet his temples

(31:06):
with a moistened finger and give him a swig. His
eyes move again. We see now that the right arm
is bleeding as well. Kat spreads out two wads of
dressing as wide as possible, so that they will cover
the wound. I look for something to bind loosely round it.
We have nothing more, so I slid up the wounded
man's trouser legs still farther in order to use a

(31:29):
piece of his underpants as a bandage. But he is
wearing none. I now look at him closely. He is
the fair headed boy of a little while ago. In
the meantime, Kat has taken advantage from a dead man's pocket,
and we carefully bind the wound. I say to the youngster,
who looks at us fixedly, we are going for a

(31:51):
stretcher now. Then he opens his mouth and whispers, stay here.
We'll be back again soon, says Kat, We are only
going to get a stretcher for you. We don't know
if he understands. He whimpers like a child and plucks
at us. Don't go away. Kat looks around and whispers,

(32:12):
shouldn't we just take a revolver and put an end
to it. The youngster will hardly survive the carrying, and
at the most he will only last a few days.
What he has gone through so far is nothing to
what he's in for till he dies. Now he is
numb and feels nothing. In an hour he will become
one screaming bundle of intolerable pain. Every day that he

(32:35):
can live will be a howling torture. And to whom
does it matter whether he has them or not. I nod, yes, Cat,
we ought to put him out of his misery. He
stands still a moment he has made up his mind.
We look round, but we are no longer alone. A

(32:56):
little group is gathering from the shell holes and trenches
appear heads. We get a stretcher cat shakes his head.
Such a kid, he repeats it, young innocence. Our losses
are less than was to be expected. Five killed and
eight wounded. It was, in fact quite a short bombardment.

(33:19):
Two of our dead lie in the upturned graves. We
had merely to throw the earth in on them. We
go back. We trot off silently in single file, one
behind the other. The wounded are taken to the dressing station.
The morning is cloudy. The bearers make a fuss about
numbers and tickets. The wounded whimper. It begins to rain.

(33:43):
An hour later we reach our lorries and climb in.
There is more room now than there was. The rain
becomes heavier. We take out waterproof sheets and spread them
over our heads. The rain rattles down and flows off
at the sides in streams. The lorries bump through the holes,
and we rock to and fro in a half sleep.

(34:05):
Two men in the front of the lorry have long
forked poles. They watch for telephone wires which hang crosswise
over the road. So densely that they might easily pull
our heads off. The two fellows take them at the
right moment on their poles, and lift them over behind us.
We hear their call, mind Wire, dip the knee in

(34:26):
a half sleep, and straighten up again. Monotonously the lory sway,
monotonously come the calls. Monotonously falls the rain. It falls
on our heads and on the heads of the dead,
up in the line, on the body of a little
recruit with the wound that is so much too big
for his hip. It falls on Camrick's grave. It falls

(34:49):
in our hearts. An explosion sound somewhere we whence our
eyes become tense, our hands ready to fault over the
side of the lorry into the dick by the road.
It goes no farther, only the monotonous cry mine Wire.
Our knees bent, we are again half asleep. End of

(35:14):
Chapter four