The Saxon stops singing—a fragment has smashed the piano. At last everything is ready and we organize the transport of it back to the dugout. After the next explosion two men dash across the fifty yards to the dugout with the pots of vegetables. We see them disappear.
The next shot. Everyone ducks and then two more trot off, each with a big can of finest grade coffee, and reach the dugout before the next explosion.
Then Kat and Kropp seize the masterpiece—the big dish with the brown, roasted sucking pigs. A screech, a knee end, and away they race over the fifty yards of open country.
I stay to finish my last four pancakes; twice I have to drop to the floor;—after all, it means four pancakes more, and they are my favourite dish.
Then I grab the plate with the great pile of cakes and squeeze myself behind the house door. A hiss, a crash, and I gallop off with the plate clamped against my chest with both hands. I am almost in, there is a rising screech, I bound, I run like a deer, sweep round the wall, fragments clatter against the concrete, I tumble down the cellar steps, my elbows are skinned, but I have not lost a single pancake, nor even upset the plate.
At two o’clock we start the meal. It lasts till six. We drink coffee until half-past six—officer’s coffee from the supply dump—and smoke officer’s cigars and cigarettes—also from the supply dump. Punctually at half-past six we begin supper. At ten o’clock we throw the bones of the sucking pigs outside the door. Then there is cognac and rum—also from the blessed supply dump—and once again long, fat cigars with bellybands. Tjaden says that it lacks only one thing: Girls from an officer’s brothel.
Late in the evening we hear mewing. A little grey cat sits in the entrance. We entice it in and give it something to eat. And that wakes up our own appetites once more. Still chewing, we lie down to sleep.
But the night is bad. We have eaten too much fat. Fresh baby pig is very griping to the bowels. There is an everlasting coming and going in the dugout. Two, three men with their pants down are always sitting about outside and cursing. I have been out nine times myself. About four o’clock in the morning we reach a record: all eleven men, guards and visitors, are squatting outside.
Burning houses stand out like torches against the night. Shells lumber across and crash down. Munition columns tear along the street. On one side the supply dump has been ripped open. In spite of all the flying fragments the drivers of the munition columns pour in like a swarm of bees and pounce on the bread. We let them have their own way. If we said anything it would only mean a good hiding for us. So we go differently about it. We explain that we are the guard and so know our way about, we get hold of the tinned stuff and exchange it for things we are short of. What does it matter anyhow—in a while it will all be blown to pieces. For ourselves we take some chocolate from the depot and eat it in slabs. Kat says it is good for loose bowels.
Almost a fortnight passes thus in eating, drinking and roaming about. No one disturbs us. The village gradually vanishes under the shells and we lead a charmed life. So long as any part of the supply dump still stands we don’t worry, we desire nothing better than to stay here till the end of the war.
Tjaden has become so fastidious that he only half smokes his cigars. With his nose in the air he explains to us that he was brought up that way. And Kat is most cheerful. In the morning his first call is: “Emil, bring in the caviar and coffee.” We put on extraordinary airs, every man treats the other as his valet, bounces him and gives him orders. “There is something itching under my foot; Kropp my man, catch that louse at once,” says Leer, poking out his leg at him like a ballet girl, and Albert drags him up the stairs by the foot. “Tjaden!”—“What?”—“Stand at ease, Tjaden; and what’s more, don’t say ‘What,’ say ‘Yes, Sir,’—now: Tjaden!” Tjaden retorts in the well-known phrase from Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen, with which he is always free.
After eight more days we receive orders to go back. The palmy days are over. Two big motor lorries take us away. They are stacked high with planks. Nevertheless, Albert and I erect on top our four-poster bed complete with blue silk canopy, mattress, and two lace coverlets. And behind it at the head is stowed a bag full of choicest edibles. We often dip into it, and the tough ham sausages, the tins of liver sausages, the conserves, the boxes of cigarettes rejoice our hearts. Each man has a bag to himself.
Kropp and I have rescued two big red armchairs as well. They stand inside the bed, and we sprawl back in them as in a theatre box. Above us swells the silken cover like a baldaquin. Each man has a long cigar in his mouth. And thus from aloft we survey the scene.
Between us stands a parrot cage that we found for the cat. She is coming with us, and lies in the cage before her saucer of meat, and purrs.
Slowly the lorries roll down the road. We sing. Behind us shells are sending up fountains
