09 - Chapter 9. All Quiet on the Western Front.

09 - Chapter 9. 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 nine 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 nine. We travel
for several days. The first aeroplanes appear in the sky.

(00:21):
We roll on past transport lines, guns, guns. The light
railway picks us up. I search for my regiment. No
one knows exactly where it lies, somewhere or other. I
put up for the night somewhere or other. I receive
provisions and a few vague instructions, and so with my
pack and my rifle, I set out again on the way.

(00:44):
By the time I come up, they are no longer
in that devastated place. I hear we have become one
of the flying divisions that are pushed in wherever it
is hottest. That does not sound cheerful to me. They
tell me of heavy losses that we have been having.
I inquire after Cad and Albert. No one knows anything

(01:04):
of them. I search farther and wander about here and there.
It is a wonderful feeling. One night and then another
I camp out like a red Indian. Then at last
I get some definite information, and by the afternoon I
am able to report to the orderly room. The sergeant

(01:25):
major detains me there. The company comes back in two
days time. There is no object in sending me up.
Now what was it like on leave? He asks? Pretty good? Eh?
In parts? I say yes. He sighs yes, if a
man didn't have to come away again. The second half

(01:46):
is always rather messed up by that. I loaf around
until the company comes back in the early morning, gray dirty,
soured and gloomy. Then I jump up push in amongst them,
my eyes searching. There is Jawdon, there is Mueller blowing
his nose, and there are Cat and Crop. We arrange

(02:06):
our sacks of straw side by side. I have an
uneasy conscience when I look at them, and yet, without
any good reason, before we turn in, I bring out
the rest of the potato cakes and jam so that
they can have some too. The two outer cakes are moldy,
still it is possible to eat them. I keep those
for myself and give the fresh ones to Cat and Crop.

(02:30):
Cat choose and says, these are from your mother. I
nod good, says he. I can tell by the taste.
I could almost weep. I can hardly control myself any longer,
but it will soon be all right again. Back here
with Cat and Albert, this is where I belong. You've

(02:52):
been lucky, whispers Crop to me. Before we drop off
to sleep, They say, we are going to Russia. To Russia,
it's not much of a war over there. In the distance.
The front thunders, the walls of the hut rattle. There
is a great deal of polishing being done. We are

(03:12):
inspected at every turn. Everything that is torn is exchange
for new. I score a spotless new tunic out of its,
and Cat, of course an entire outfit. A rumor is
going around that there may be peace, but the other
story is more likely that we are bound for Russia. Still,
what do we need new things for in Russia? At last,

(03:34):
it leaks out the Kaiser is coming to review us.
Hence all the inspections for eight whole days. One would
suppose we were in a base camp. There is so
much drill and fuss. Every one is peevish and touchy.
We do not take kindly to all this polishing, much
less to parades. Such things exasperate a soldier more than

(03:57):
the front line. At last, the moment arrives, we stand
up stiff and the Kaiser appears. We are curious to
see what he looks like. He stalks along the line,
and I am really rather disappointed. Judging from his pictures,
I imagine him to be bigger and more powerfully built,
and above all, to have a thundering voice. He distributes

(04:20):
iron crosses and speaks to this man and to that.
Then we march off. Afterwards we discuss it. Chadden says,
with astonishment. So that is the all highest, and everyone
bar nobody has to stand up stiff in front of him.
He meditates Hindenburg too. He has to stand up stiff

(04:43):
to him? Eh, sure, says Kat. Chodden hasn't finished yet.
He thinks for a while and then asks, and would
a king have to stand up stiff to an emperor?
None of us is quite sure about it, but we
don't suppose. So they are bold, so exalted that standing
strictly to attention is probably not insisted on what rot

(05:06):
you do hatch out, says Kat. The main point is
that you have to stand stiff yourself. Patiodden is quite fascinated.
His otherwise prosy fancy is blowing bubbles. But look, he announces,
I simply can't believe that an emperor has to go
to the latrine the same as I have. You can

(05:26):
bet your boots on it. Four and a half. Whit
makes seven, says kat You've got a maggot in your brain. Todden.
Just you run along to the latrine quick and get
your head clear so that you don't talk like a
two year old. Todden disappears. But what I would like
to know, says Albert, is whether there would not have

(05:47):
been a war if the Kaiser had said no. I'm
sure of this much, I interject, he was against it
from the first. Well, if not him alone, then perhaps
if twenty or thirty people in the world has said no,
that's probable. I agree, But they damned well said yes.
It's queer when one thinks about it, goes on crop.

(06:11):
We are here to protect our fatherland, and the French
are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who is
in the right, perhaps, both say I without believing it. Yes, Well,
now pursues Albert, and I see that he means to
drive me into a corner. But our professors and parsons

(06:31):
and newspapers say that we are the only ones that
are right, and let's hope so. But the French professors
and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on
their side. Now what about that that? I don't know,
I say, But whichever way it is, there's war all
the same, and every month more country's coming in. Teidon reappears.

(06:53):
He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation,
wondering just how a war gets started, mostly by one
country badly offending another, answers Albert with a slight air
of superiority. Then Chiatten pretends to be obtuse a country.
I don't follow a mountain in Germany cannot offend a

(07:16):
mountain in France, or a river, or a wood or
a field of wheat. Are you really as stupid as that?
Or are you just pulling my leg? Growls Kropp. I
don't mean that at all. One people offends the other,
then I haven't any business here at all, replies Chatten.

(07:36):
I don't feel myself offended. Well, let me tell you,
says Albert sourly, it doesn't apply to tramps like you.
Then I can be going home right away, retorts Chatten,
and we all laugh. Ach Man, he means the people
as a whole, the state exclaims Muller, state state. Chad

(08:01):
snaps his fingers contemptuously. Gendarmes, police taxes, that's your state,
if that's what you're talking about. No, thank you, that's right,
said Kat. You've said something for once, Chiadden. State in
home country, there's a big difference, but they go together,
insists Cropp. Without the state, there wouldn't be any home country. True,

(08:26):
but just you consider almost all of us are simple folk,
and in France too, the majority of men are labors,
workmen or poor clerks. Now, just why would a French
blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No,
it's merely the rulers. I had never seen a frenchman
before I came here, and it will be just the

(08:47):
same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They
aren't asked about it any more than we were. Then,
what exactly is the war for? Asked Chadden. Kat shrugs
his shoulders. There must be some people to whom the
war is useful. Well, I'm not one of them, grins Chodden,

(09:08):
not you nor anybody else here. Who are they? Then,
persists Chodden, It isn't any use to the Kaiser. Either
he has everything he can want already. I'm not so
sure about that, contradicts Cat. He has not had a
war up till now, and every full grown emperor requires

(09:28):
at least one war, otherwise he wouldn't become famous. You
look in your school books and generals too, adds Dettering.
They become famous through war, even more famous than emperor's,
adds Kat. There are other people back behind there who
profit by the war, that's certain, growls Dettering. I think

(09:52):
it's more a kind of fever, says Albert. No one
in particular wants it, and then all at once there
it is. We didn't want the war. The others say
the same thing, and yet half the world is in it.
All the same. But there are more lies told by
the other side than by us, says I. Just think

(10:13):
of those pamphlets the prisoners have on them where it
says that we eat Belgian children. The fellows who write
that ought to go and hang themselves. They are the
real culprits Mueller gets up. Anyway, it is better that
the war is here instead of in Germany. Just you
take a look at the shell holes, true assents chodden,

(10:36):
But no war at all would be better. Still, he
is quite proud of himself because he has for once
scored over us volunteers. And his opinion is quite typical.
Here one meets at time and again, and there is
nothing with which one can properly counter it, because that
is the limit of their comprehension of the factors involved.

(10:57):
The national feeling of the Tommy resolves itself into this.
Here he is. But that is the end of it.
Everything else from joining up onwards, he criticizes. From a
practical point of view, Albert lies down on the grass
and growls angrily. The best thing is not to talk
about the rotten business. It won't make any difference, that's sure,

(11:19):
agrees Cat. As for the windfall, we have to return
almost all the new things and take back our old
rags again. The good ones were merely for the inspection.
Instead of going to Russia, we go up the line again.
On the way we pass through a devastated wood, with
the tree trunk shattered and the ground plowed up. At

(11:41):
several places there are tremendous craters. Great guns. Something's hit that,
I say to Cat trench mortars, he replies, and then
points up at one of the trees. In the branches,
dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in
the fork of a tree. He still has his helmet on,

(12:02):
otherwise he's entirely unclad. There is only half of him
sitting up there. The top half the legs are missing.
What can that mean? I ask? He's been blown out
of his clothes, mutters Tchadden. It's funny, says Kat. We
have seen that a couple of times now. If a

(12:23):
mortar gets you, it blows you almost clean out of
your clothes. It's the concussion that does it. I search around,
and so it is. Here hangs bits of uniform, and
somewhere else is plastered a bloody miss that was once
a human limb. Over there lies a body with nothing
but a piece of the underpants on one leg and

(12:44):
the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it
is naked, and the clothes are hanging up in the tree.
Both arms are missing, as though they have been pulled out.
I discover one of them twenty yards off in a shrub.
The dead man lies on his face there where the
armoons are. The earth is black with blood. Underfoot, the

(13:06):
leaves are scratched up as though the man had been kicking.
That's no joke, Kat, say I no more's a shell
splinter in the belly, he replies, shrugging his shoulders. But
don't get tender hearted, says Chodden. All this can only
have happened a little while ago. The blood is still fresh,

(13:29):
as everybody we see there is dead. We do not
waste any more time but report the affair at the
next stretcher bearer's post. After all, it is not our
business to take these stretcher bearers jobs away from them.
A patrol has to be sent out to discover just
how far the enemy position is advanced. Since my leave,

(13:50):
I feel a certain strange attachment to the other fellows,
and so I volunteer to go with them. We agree
on a plan slip out through the water, and then
divide and creep forward separately. After a while, I find
a shallow shell hole and crawl into it. From here
I peer forward. There is moderate machine gun fire. It

(14:13):
sweeps across from all directions, not very heavy, but always
sufficient to make one keep down. A parachute star shell
opens out. The ground lies stark in the pale light,
and then the darkness shuts down again. Blacker than ever
in the trenches. We were told they were black troops
in front of us. That is nasty. It is hard

(14:36):
to see them. They are very good at patrolling, too,
and oddly enough, they are often quite stupid. For instance,
both Cat and Crop were once able to shoot down
a black enemy patrol because the fellows, in their enthusiasm
for cigarettes, smoked while they were creeping about. Cat and
Albert had simply to aim at the glowing ends of

(14:57):
the cigarettes. A bomb something lands close beside me. I
have not heard it coming and am terrified. At the
same moment, a senseless fear takes hold on me. Here
I am alone and almost helpless in the dark. Perhaps
two other eyes have been watching me for a long
while from another shell hole in front of me, and

(15:18):
a bomb lies ready to blow me to pieces. I
try to pull myself together. It is not my first patrol,
and not a particularly frisky one, but it is the
first since my leave, and besides, the lie of the
land is still rather strange to me. I tell myself
that my alarm is absurd, that there is probably nothing

(15:41):
at all there in the darkness watching me, because otherwise
the missile would not have landed so flat. It is
in vain, in whirling confusion, my thoughts hum in my brain.
I hear the warning voice of my mother. I see
the Russians with the flowing beards, leaning against the wire fence.
I have a bright picture of a canteen with stools,

(16:03):
of a cinema in Valencian, Tormented, terrified. In my imagination,
I see the gray, impalpable muzzle of a rifle, which
moves noiselessly before me. Whichever way I try to turn
my head, the sweat breaks out from every pore. I
still continue to lie in my shallow bowl. I look

(16:24):
at the time. Only a few minutes have passed. My
forehead is wet, the sockets of my eyes are damp.
My hands tremble, and I am panting softly. It is
nothing but an awful spasm of fear, a simple animal
fear of poking out my head and crawling on farther.
All my efforts subside like froth, into the one desire

(16:48):
to be able to just stay lying there. My limbs
are glued to the earth. I make a vain attempt.
They refuse to come away. I press myself down on
the earth. I cannot go forward. I make up my
mind to stay lying there, but immediately the wave floods
over me anew a mingled sense of shame, of remorse,

(17:11):
and yet at the same time of security. I raise
myself up a little to take a look around. My
eyes burn with staring into the dark. A star shell
goes up. I duck down again. I wage a wild
and senseless fight. I want to get out of the hollow,
and yet slide back into it again. I say, you must,

(17:33):
it is your comrades, it is not any idiotic command.
And again, what does it matter to me? I have
only one life to lose, that is the result of
all this. Leave. I reproach myself bitterly, but I cannot
convince myself. I become terribly faint. I raise myself slowly

(17:55):
and reach forward with my arms, dragging my body after me,
And then on the edge of the shell hole, half
in and half out there, I hear sounds and drop back.
Suspicious sounds can be detected clearly despite the noise of
the artillery fire. I listen. The sound is behind me.

(18:16):
They are our people moving along the trench. Now I
hear muffled voices. To judge by the tone that might
be cat talking. At once, a new warmth flows through me.
These voices, these few quiet words, these footsteps in the
trench behind me, recall me at a bound from the

(18:37):
terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I have
been almost destroyed. They are more to me than life,
these voices. They are more than motherliness and more than fear.
They are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere.
They are the voices of my comrades. I am no

(18:58):
longer a shuddering speck of existence alone in the darkness.
I belong to them, and they to me. We all
share the same fear and the same life. We are
nearer than lovers. In a simpler, a harder way, I
could bury my face in them, in these voices, these
words that have saved me and will stand by me. Cautiously.

(19:21):
I glide out over the edge and snake my way forward.
I shuffle along on all fours a bit farther. I
keep track of my bearings, look around me, and observe
the distribution of the gunfire, so as to be able
to find my way back. Then I try to get
in touch with the others. I am still afraid, but

(19:41):
It is an intelligent fear, an extraordinarily heightened caution. The
night is windy, and shadows flit hither and thither. In
the flicker of the gunfire, it reveals too little and
too much. Often I peer ahead, but always for nothing.
Thus I advance it's a long way, and then turned

(20:02):
back in a wide curve. I have not established touch
with the others. Every yard near our trench fills me
with confidence, and with haste too. It would be bad
to get lost. Now. Then a new fear lays hold
of me. I can no longer remember the direction. Quiet,

(20:24):
I squat in a shell hole and try to locate myself.
More than once, it has happened that some fellow has
jumped joyfully into a trench, only then to discover that
it was the wrong one. After a little time, I
listen again, But still I am not sure. The confusion
of shell holes now seems so bewildering that I can

(20:45):
no longer tell in my agitation which way I should go.
Perhaps I am crawling parallel to the lines, and that
might go on forever. So I crawl round once again
in a wide curve. These dams rockets, they seem to
burn for an hour, and a man cannot make the
least movement without bringing the bullets whistling round. But there

(21:08):
is nothing for it. I must get out falteringly. I
work my way farther. I move off over the ground
like a crab, and rip my hands sorely on the
jagged splinters as sharp as razor blades. Often I think
that the sky is becoming lighter on the horizon, but
it may be merely my imagination. Then gradually I realize

(21:31):
that to crawl in the right direction is a matter
of life or death. A shell crashes almost immediately two others,
and then it begins in earnest a bombardment. Machine guns rattled.
Now there is nothing for it but to stay lying low.
Apparently an attack is coming everywhere. The rockets shoot up unceasing.

(21:57):
I lie huddled in a large shell hole, my legs
the water up to the belly. When the attack starts,
I will let myself fall into the water, with my
face as deep in the mud as I can keep
it without suffocating. I must pretend to be dead. Suddenly
I hear the barrage lift at once. I slip down
into the water, my helmet on the nape of my

(22:19):
neck and my mouth just clear, so that I can
get a breath of air. I lie motionless somewhere. Something clanks,
It stamps and stumbles nearer. All my nerves become taut
and icy. It clatters over me and away. The first
wave has passed. I have but this one shattering thought.

(22:40):
What will you do if someone jumps into your shell hole?
Swiftly I pull up my little dagger, grasp it fast,
and bury it in my hand once again under the mud.
If any one jumps in here, I will go for him.
It hammers in my forehead at once, stab him clean
through the throat, so that he cannot out. That's the

(23:02):
only way he will be just as frightened as I am.
When in terror we fall upon one another, then I
must be first. Now our batteries are firing. A shell
lands near me. That makes me savage with fury. All
it needs now is to be killed by our own shells.
I curse and grind my teeth in the mud. It

(23:24):
is a raving frenzy. In the end, all I can
do is groan and prey. The crash of the shells
bursts in my ears. If our fellows make a counter raid,
I will be saved. I press my head against the
earth and listen to the muffled thunder, like the explosions
of quarrying, and raise it again to listen for the

(23:45):
sounds on top. The machine guns rattle. I know our
barbed wire entanglements are strong and almost undamaged. Parts of
them are charged with a powerful electric current. The rifle
fire increases. They have not broken through. They have to retreat.
I sink down again, huddled, strained to the uttermost the banging,

(24:09):
the creeping, the clanging becomes audible, one single cry yelling
amongst it all. They are raked with fire. The attack
is repulsed. Already it has become somewhat lighter. Steps hasten
over me, The first gone again another. The rattle of

(24:30):
machine guns becomes an unbroken chain. Just as I am
about to turn round, a little something heavy stumbles, and
with a crash, a body falls over me into the
shell hole, slips down and lies across me. I do
not think at all, I make no decision. I strike
madly home and feel only how the body suddenly convulses,

(24:53):
then becomes limp and collapses. When I recover myself, my
hand is sticky and wet. The man gurgles. It sounds
to me as though he bellows. Every gasping breath is
like a cry a thunder. But it is only my
heart pounding. I want to stop his mouth, stuff it

(25:15):
with earth, stab him again. He must be quiet. He
is betraying me. Now, at last I regain control of myself,
but have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot anymore
lift my hand against him. So I crawled away to
the farthest corner, and stay there, my eyes glued on him,
my hand grasping the knife, ready if he stirs, to

(25:38):
spring at him again. But he won't do so any more.
I can hear that already in his gurgling. I can
see him indistinctly. I have but one desire to get away.
If it is not soon, it will be too light.
It will be difficult enough. Now, then, as I try

(25:58):
to raise up my head, I see it is impossible.
Already the machine gun fire so sweeps the ground that
I would be shot through and through before I could
make one jump. I test it once with my helmet,
which I take off and hold up to find out
the level of the shots. The next moment it is
knocked out of my hand by a bullet. The fire

(26:20):
sweeping very low over the ground. I am not far
enough from the enemy line to escape being picked off
by one of the snipers. If I attempt to get away,
the light increases burning. I wait for our attack. My
hands are white at the knuckles. I clench them so
tightly in my longing for the fire to see, so
that my comrades may come. Minute after minute trickles away.

(26:45):
I dare not look again at the dark figure in
the shell hole. With an effort, I look past it
and wait. Wait. The bullets hiss. They make a steel net,
never ceasing, never ceasing. Then I notice my bloody hand
and suddenly feel nauseated. I takes some mirth and rub
the skin with it. Now my hand is muddy and

(27:07):
the blood cannot be seen any more. The fire does
not diminish. It is equally heavy from both sides. Our
fellows have probably given me up for lost long ago.
It is early morning, clear and gray. The gurgling continues.
I stop my ears, but soon take my fingers away again,

(27:28):
because then I cannot hear the other sound. The figure
opposite me moves. I shrink together and involuntarily look at it.
Then my eyes remain glued to it. A man with
a small pointed beard lies there. His head is fallen
to one side. One arm is half bent, his head
rests helplessly upon it. The other hand lies on his chest.

(27:52):
It is bloody. He is dead, I say to myself.
He must be dead. He doesn't feel anything any more.
It is only the body that is gurgling there. Then
the head tries to raise itself. For a moment, the
groaning becomes louder. His forehead sinks back upon his arm.

(28:13):
The man is not dead. He is dying, but he
is not dead. I drag myself toward him, hesitate, support
myself on my hands, creep a bit farther. Wait again.
A terrible journey of three yards a long, a terrible journey.
At last I am beside him. Then he opens his eyes.

(28:37):
He must have heard me, and gazes at me with
a look of utter terror. The body lies still, but
in the eyes there is such an extraordinary expression of
flight that for a moment I think they have the
power enough to carry the body off with them, hundreds
of miles away, with one bound. The body is still

(28:57):
perfectly still, without sound. The girl has ceased, but the
eyes cry out yell. All the life is gathered together
in them for one tremendous effort to flee, gathered together
there in a dreadful terror of death of me. My
legs give way, and I drop on my elbows. No no,

(29:19):
I whisper. The eyes follow me. I am powerless to
move so long as they are there. Then his hands
slipped slowly from his breast, only a little. It sinks
just a few inches. But this movement breaks the power
of the eyes. I bend forward, shake my head and whisper, no, no, no.

(29:42):
I raise one hand. I must show him that I
want to help him. I stroke his forehead. The eyes
shrink back as the hand comes. Then they lose their stare.
The eyelids droop lower. The tension is past. I open
his collar and place his he had more comfortably upright.
His mouth stands half open. It tries to form words.

(30:07):
The lips are dry. My water bottle is not there.
I have not brought it with me, But there is
water in the mud down at the bottom of the crater.
I climb down, take out my handkerchief, spread it out,
push it under, and scoop up the yellow water. That
strains through into the hollow of my hand. He gulps

(30:27):
it down. I fetch some more. Then I unbutton his
tunic in order to bandage him. If it is possible,
in any case, I must do it so that if
the fellows over there capture me, they will see that
I wanted to help him, and so will not shoot me.
He tries to resist, but his hand is too feeble.

(30:48):
The shirt is stuck and will not come away. It
is buttoned at the back, so there is nothing for
it but to cut it off. I look for the
knife and find it again. When I begin to cut
the shirt, the eyes open once more, and the cry
is in them again, and the demented expression that I
must close them, press them shut, and whisper I want

(31:10):
to help you, Comrade, Comrade, comrade, comrade, eagerly repeating the
word to make him understand. There are three stabs. My
field dressing covers them. The blood runs out under it.
I press it tighter. There, he groans, that is all
I can do. Now we must wait, wait these hours.

(31:36):
The gurgling starts again, But how slowly a man dies?
For this I know he cannot be saved. Indeed, I
have tried to tell myself that he will be. But
at noon this pretense breaks down and melts before his groans.
If only I had not lost my revolver crawling abouts,

(31:57):
I would shoot him, stab him. I cannot. By noon,
I am groping on the outer limits of reason. Hunger
devours me. I could almost weep for something to eat,
but I cannot struggle against it. Again and again I
fetch water for the dying man, and drink some myself.

(32:19):
This is the first man I have killed with my
hands whom I can see close at hand. Whose death
is my doing. Cat and Crop and Muller have experienced
it already when they have hit someone. It happens to
many in hand to hand fighting especially. But every gasp
lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him.

(32:40):
He has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me
time and my thoughts. I would give much if he
would but stay alive. It is hard to lie here
and to have to see and hear him. In the afternoon.
About three he is dead. I breathe free again, but

(33:01):
only for a short time. Soon the silence is more
unbearable than the groans. I wish the gurgling, were there again,
gasping hoarse, now whistling softly, and again hoarse and loud.
It is mad what I do, but I must do something.
I prop the dead man up again, so that he

(33:21):
lies comfortably, although he feels nothing any more. I close
his eyes. There are brown. His hair is black and
a bit curly at the sides. The mouth is full
and soft beneath his mustache. The nose is slightly arched,
the skin brownish. It is now not so pale as

(33:41):
it was before when he was still alive. For a moment,
the face seems almost healthy. Then it collapses suddenly into
the strange face of the dead that I have so
often seen, strange faces all alike. No doubt, his wife
still thinks of him. She does not know what has happened.

(34:02):
He looks as if he would often have written to her.
She will still be getting mail from him tomorrow, in
a week's time, perhaps even a stray letter a month.
Hence she will read it, and in it he will
be speaking to her. My state is getting worse. I
can no longer control my thoughts. What would his wife

(34:24):
look like like? The little brunette on the other side
of the canal. Does she belong to me? Now? Perhaps
by this act she becomes mine. I wish Katrick was
sitting here beside me. If my mother could see me,
the dead man might have had thirty more years of life.
If only I had impressed the way back to our

(34:45):
trench more sharply on my memory. If only he had
run two yards farther to the left, he might now
be sitting in the trench over there and writing a
fresh letter to his wife. But I will get no
further that way, for that is the fate of all
of us. If Keemrick's leg had been six inches to
the right, if Hyavestus had bent his back three inches

(35:08):
further forward, the silence spreads. I talk and must talk.
So I speak to him and say to him, comrade,
I did not want to kill you. If you jumped
in here again, I would not do it if you
would be sensible too. But you were only an idea

(35:28):
to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind
and called forth an appropriate response. It was that abstraction
I stabbed. But now for the first time I see
you are a man like me. I thought of your
hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle. Now I
see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade.

(35:54):
We always see it too late. Why do they never
tell us that you are just poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and
that we have the same fear of death, and the
same dying, and the same agony. Forgive me, comrade. How
could you be my enemy? If we threw away these

(36:14):
rifles in this uniform, you could be my brother, just
like cad and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade,
and stand up. Take more, for I do not know
what I can even attempt to do with it. Now
it is quiet, The front is still except for the
crackle of rifle fire. The bullets rain over. They are

(36:36):
not fired haphazard, but shrewdly, aim from all sides. I
cannot get out. I will write to your wife, I
say hastily to the dead man. I will write to her.
She must hear it from me. I will tell her
everything I have told you. She shall not suffer. I
will help her, and your parents too, and your child.

(37:00):
His tunic is half open. The pocket book is easy
to find, but I hesitate to open it. In it
is the book with his name. So long as I
do not know his name, perhaps I may still forget him.
Time will obliterate it. This picture, but his name, it
is a nail that will be hammered into me and

(37:21):
never come out again. It has the power to recall
this forever. It will always come back and stand before
me irresolutely. I take the wallet in my hand. It
slips out of my hand and falls open. Some pictures
and letters drop out. I gather them up and want

(37:41):
to put them back again. But the strain I am under,
the uncertainty, the hunger, the danger. These hours with the
dead man have confused me. I want to hasten the relief,
to intensify, and to end the torture. As one strikes
an unendurably painful hand against the trunk of a tree.
Regardless of everything, there are portraits of a woman and

(38:05):
a little girl, small amateur photographs taken against an ivy
clad wall. Along with them are letters. I take them
out and try to read them. Most of it I
do not understand. It is so hard to decipher, and
I know scarcely any French. But each word I translate
pierces me like a shot in the chest, like a

(38:27):
stab in the chest. My brain is taxed beyond endurance.
But I realize this much that I will never dare
to write to these people as I intended impossible. I
look at the portraits once more. They are clearly not
rich people. I might send them money anonymously. If I
earn anything later on. I seize upon that it is

(38:51):
at least something to hold on to. This dead man
is bound up with my life. Therefore I must do everything,
promise every in order to save myself. I swear blindly
that I mean to live only for his sake and
his family. With wet lips, I try to placate him,
and deep down in me lies the hope that I

(39:13):
may buy myself off in this way, and perhaps even
yet get out of this. It is a little stratagem.
If only I am allowed to escape, then I will
see to it. So I open the book and read slowly.
Gerard Duval, compositor. With the dead man's pencil, I write
the address on an envelope. The swiftly thrust everything back

(39:36):
into his tunic. I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval.
I must be a printer, I think, confusingly, be a
printer printer. By afternoon I am calmer. My fear was groundless.
The name troubles me no more. The madness passes, Comrade,

(39:58):
I say to the dead man. But I say it
calmly to day you tomorrow me. But if I come
out of it, Comrade, I will fight against this that
has struck us both down from you taken life and
from me life also, I promise you, Comrade, it shall
never happen again. The sun strikes low. I am stupefied

(40:24):
with exhaustion and hunger. Yesterday is like a fog to me.
There is no hope of getting out of this. Yet
I fall into a doze and do not realize at
first that evening is approaching. The twilight comes, it seems
to me to come quickly. Now one hour more. If
it were summer, it will be three hours more, one

(40:47):
hour more. Now. Suddenly I begin to tremble. Something might
happen in the interval. I think no more of the
dead men. He is of no consequence to me. Now,
with one bound, the lust to live flares up again,
and everything that has filled my thoughts goes down before
it now merely to avert my ill luck. I babble mechanically.

(41:11):
I will fulfill everything, fulfill everything I have promised you,
But already I know that I shall not do so.
Suddenly it occurs to me that my own comrades may
fire on me. As I creep up. They do not
know I am coming. I will call out as soon
as I can, so that they will recognize me. I

(41:33):
will stay lying in front of the trench until they
answer me. The first star. The front remains quiet. I
breathe deeply and talk to myself in my excitement. No foolishness, now, Paul, Quiet,
Paul Quiet, Then you will be saved. Paul. When I
use my Christian name, it works as though some one

(41:55):
else spoke to me. It has more power. The darkness grows,
my excitement subsides. I wait cautiously until the first rocket
goes up. Then I crawl out of the shell hole.
I have forgotten the dead man before me lies the
oncoming night and the pale, gleaming field. I fix my

(42:16):
eye on a shell hole. The moment the light dies,
I scurry over to it, grope farther, spring into the
next duck down, scramble onward. I come nearer there by
the light of a rocket. I see something move in
the wire, then it stiffens and lies still. Next time
I see it again. Yes, they are men from our trench,

(42:40):
but I am suspicious until I recognize our helmets. Then
I call, and immediately an answer rings out. My name, Paul, Paul.
I call again. In answer it is Cad and Albert,
who have come out with a stretcher to look for me.
Are you wounded? No? No, oh. We drop into the trench.

(43:02):
I ask for something to eat and wolf it down.
Muller gives me a cigarette. In a few words, I
tell what happened. There is nothing new about it. It
happens quite often. The night attack is the only unusual
feature of the business in Russia. Cat once lay for
two days behind the enemy lines before he could make

(43:24):
his way back. I do not mention the dead printer,
but by next morning I can keep it to myself.
No longer. I must tell Cat and Albert. They both
try to calm me. You can't do anything about it.
What else could you have done? That is what you
are here for. I listen to them and feel comforted,

(43:47):
reassured by their presence. It was mere driveling nonsense that
I talked out there in the shell hole. Look there,
for instance, points Kat. On the fire step stand some snipers.
They rest their rifles with telescopic sights on the parapet
and watch the enemy front. Once and again, a shot

(44:07):
cracks out. Then we hear the cry that's found a billet.
Did you see how he leaped in the air? Sergeant
Ulrich turns round proudly and scores his point. He heads
the shootingless for to day with three unquestionable hits. What
do you say to that, asks Kat? I nod. If

(44:30):
he keeps that up, he will get a little colored
bird for his buttonhole by this evening, says Albert. Or
rather he will soon be made acting sergeant major, says Kat.
We look at one another. I would not do it,
I say, all the same, says Kat. It's very good
for you to see it. Just now. Sergeant Ulrich returns

(44:53):
to the fire step. The muzzle of his rifle searches
to and fro. You don't need a lu any more.
Sleep over your affair, nods Albert. And now I hardly
understand it myself any more. It was only because I
had to lie there with him so long, I say,
After all, war is war, Ulric's rifle cracks out, sharp

(45:18):
and dry, end of chapter nine,