“Another good handful,” I say, “and my comrade,” I point to Kropp, “he has some as well. We might possibly be glad to hand them to you out of the window of the hospital train in the morning.”
He understands, of course, smells them once again and says: “Done.”
We cannot get a minute’s sleep all night. One of them sings hymns in a high cracked tenor before he begins to gurgle. Another has crept out of his bed to the window. He lies in front of it as though he wants to look out for the last time.
Our stretchers stand on the platform. We wait for the train. It rains and the station has no roof. Our blankets are thin. We have waited already two hours.
The sergeant-major looks after us like a mother. Although I feel pretty bad I do not let our scheme out of my mind. Casually I let him see the packet and give him one cigar in advance. In exchange the sergeant-major covers us over with a waterproof sheet.
“Albert, old man,” I suddenly bethink myself, “our four-poster and the cat—”
“And the club chairs,” he adds.
Yes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening we used to sit in them like lords, and intended later on to let them out by the hour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regular business, a real good living.
“And our bags of grub, too, Albert.”
We grow melancholy. We might have made some use of the things. If only the train left one day later Kat would be sure to find us and bring us the stuff.
What damned hard luck! In our bellies there is gruel, mean hospital stuff, and in our bags roast pork. But we are so weak that we cannot work up any more excitement about it.
The stretchers are sopping wet by the time the train arrives in the morning. The sergeant-major sees to it that we are put in the same car. There is a crowd of red-cross nurses. Kropp is stowed in below. I am lifted up and told to get into the bed above him.
“Good God!” I exclaim suddenly.
“What is it?” asks the sister.
I cast a glance at the bed. It is covered with clean snow-white linen, that even has got the marks of the iron still on it. And my shirt has gone six weeks without being washed and is terribly muddy.
“Can’t you get in by yourself?” asks the sister gently.
“Why yes,” I say in a sweat, “but take off the bed cover first.”
“What for?”
I feel like a pig. Must I get in there?—“It will get—” I hesitate.
“A little bit dirty?” she suggests helpfully. “That doesn’t matter, we will wash it again afterwards.”
“No, no, not that—” I say excitedly. I am not equal to such overwhelming refinement.
“When you have been lying out there in the trenches, surely we can wash a sheet,” she goes on.
I look at her, she is young and crisp, spotless and neat, like everything here; a man cannot realize that it isn’t for officers only, and feels himself strange and in some way even alarmed.
All the same the woman is a tormentor, she is going to force me to say it. “It is only—” I try again, surely she must know what I mean.
“What is it then?”
“Because of the lice,” I bawl out at last.
She laughs. “Well, they must have a good day for once, too.”
Now I don’t care any more. I scramble into bed and pull up the covers.
A hand gropes over the bedcover. The sergeant-major. He goes off with the cigars.
An hour later we notice we are moving.
I wake up during the night. Kropp is restless too. The train rides easily over the rails. I cannot realize it all yet; a bed, a train, home. “Albert!” I whisper.
“Yes—”
“Do you know where the latrine is?”
“The door is on the right, I think.”
“I’m going to have a look.” It is dark, I grope for the edge of the bed and cautiously try to slide down. But my foot finds no support, I begin to slip, the plaster leg is no help, and with a crash I lie on the floor.
“Damn!” I say.
“Have you bumped yourself?” asks Kropp.
“You could hear that well enough for yourself,” I growl, “my head—”
A door opens at the rear of the car. The sister comes with a light and looks at me.
“He has fallen out of bed—”
She feels my pulse and smooths my forehead. “You haven’t any fever, though.”
“No,” I agree.
“Have you been dreaming then?” she asks.
“Perhaps—” I evade. The interrogation starts again. She looks at me with her clear eyes, and the more wonderful and sweet she is the less am I able to tell her what I want.
I am lifted up into bed again. That will be all right. As soon as she goes I must try to climb down again. If she were an old woman, it might be easier to say what a man wants, but she is so very young, at the most twenty-five, it can’t be done, I cannot possibly tell her.
Then Albert comes to my rescue, he is not bashful, it makes no difference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turns round. “Sister, he wants—” but no more does Albert know how to express it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a single word, but here, to such a lady—All at once he remembers his school days and finishes hastily: “He wants to leave the room, sister.”
“Ah!” says the sister, “but he shouldn’t climb out of his bed with plaster bandage. What do you want then?” she says turning to me.
I am in mortal terror at this turn, for I haven’t any idea what the things are called professionally. She comes to my help.
“Little or big?”
Shocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: “Well, only quite
