house, for Frau Marion Feders knew how to exercise her charm.
The present commanding officer, Major-General Modersohn, tacitly accepted the situation. It could hardly be supposed that he would allow it to continue indefinitely. For Modersohn didn't seem to recognize such a thing as private life, and certainly not at his training school. This suited Feders, particularly in the circumstances, though he hadn't the strength to tell his wife openly.
He forced himself to concentrate. He wanted to hear her, in order to realize again—over and over again—what a desperate senseless business it all was. But he heard nothing. He got up, went over to the door that led into the bedroom, opened it and switched on the center light.
And there lay Marion, his wife, with her short, bright blonde hair. The bedclothes had slipped from her strong, sunburned shoulders, and he noted the clean sweep of her hips and the magic of her skin glistening with the sweat of sleep.
“Are you coming to bed?" she asked, blinking, and rolling over on to her back.
“No," he said.
“Why don't you?" She was so sleepy that her lips hardly moved.
“I just wanted to get a book," said Feders, picking up a book that lay on the bedside table. Then he turned his head abruptly, put out the light and left the room.
He returned to his desk and stood in front of it for a while. He put the book aside and stared at the harsh light, at the billowing clouds of smoke from a couple of dozen cigarettes, and beyond, into the darkness which seemed to lie in wait for him. And in that moment it finally became clear to him that life—his life at any rate—was rotten and useless. Hardly worth bothering to do away with.
The moon rose higher. The hard silhouette of the barracks melted in the pale frostiness of the night, until all outlines disappeared. Roofs seemed to become flatter; roads merged with patches of lawn into an indeterminate greyness, and it was as if the walls of the place simply sank into the earth. A flat uniformity seemed to absorb everything.
The thousand human beings there were now lost to the world. Hardly a man among them was not sunk deep in oblivion. Even the sentry dozed wearily. He had lost almost all sense of his surroundings by now. The utter emptiness all about him was like some infinite extension of his own state of mind. The most comfortable of all worlds to guard would have been one in which all life was extinct.
As the hours slipped by they stripped the sentry of all personality; of his vague emotions, his cautious appetites, his rare flickering of purpose, and his overwhelming despondency. He merely patrolled his beat: a mechanical being with a brain that was already asleep.
The hills above Wildlingen-am-Main on which the barracks now stood had once been covered with vineyards, where, barely two centuries ago, a wine had been bottled under the label “Wildlinger Galgenberg." A dry, fruity, full-bodied wine, so the connoisseurs said. But then times had changed for the worse, and people turned from wine to schnapps, which made them drunk more quickly.
Then, however, times had become great and heroic again, as the newspapers and radio stations never ceased to proclaim. The German people, it was said, had once again become conscious of their great and glorious traditions. And so one fine morning in the year 1934 a truck drove up on to the hills. Army officers, engineers and officials looked, nodded, and gave the word. Wildlingen was found worthy to become a garrison town, a decision which caused great joy to the citizens of Wildlingen, who liked to serve the nation, particularly when they were well paid for doing so.
Two years later the barracks was built, and soon afterwards an infantry battalion moved in, and money started rolling into the pockets of the citizens of Wildlingen. Tears came into their eyes when they beheld their valiant soldiers. And the birth-rate rose astonishingly.
When war came the infantry battalion was replaced by an infantry reserve battalion. Otherwise there was little change. The brave citizens no longer wept from emotion, but the birthrate continued to rise, for procreation and death proved themselves effective partners.
In the second year of the war the barracks above Wildlingen were transformed into Number 5 Officers' Training School, whose first commanding officer was Major-General Ritter von Trippler, later killed at the eastern front. The second commanding officer, Colonel Sänger, fell victim to a prosecution for a misappropriation of Wehrmacht property. The third commanding officer was Colonel Freiherr von Fritschler and Geierstein, who was relieved of his duties for demonstrable incompetence and given a post in the Balkans, where he was highly decorated. The fourth commanding officer was Major-General Modersohn.
Major-General Modersohn now lay quietly asleep in his bed, breathing regularly. It was almost as if he were ceremonially laid out in his coffin, for there was no situation in life in which Modersohn's attitude was not exemplary.
Wirrmann, the Judge-Advocate, was also asleep. He lay there breathing heavily as if packed between documents and covered with the dust of many court-martials. Kater, commander of the headquarters company, had fallen into a similar sort of heavy sleep. Three bottles of red wine kept all his worries at bay.
Elfrida Rademacher still lay beside Lieutenant Krafft. And their expressions made it clear that they hoped the night would never end.
Captain Ratshelm smiled in his sleep. He saw himself in his dream standing beside a pure, vigorous young wife in a meadow full of flowers, surrounded by a troop of adorable healthy children. And all of them both spouse and progeny were cadets: cadets of his training school, on his course, cadets of his company—his very own cadets!
But none of the cadets were dreaming about Captain Ratshelm, not even Hochbauer. He hardly ever dreamt. If he occasionally gave in to daydreams while awake, these were shot with reds and golds and browns, and they revolved round visions of titanic glory, of mighty achievement and renown. Every imaginable sacrifice for the great goal! In times of desperation, his beloved Führer had wielded a house-painter's brush; he too was ready for a similar sacrifice, if there was no alternative.
Cadets Mösler, Rednitz and Weber had gone to sleep in a great state of dissatisfaction. They had been deeply disappointed to find the terrain they coveted already occupied. But they hadn't given up hope. After all, the course had only just begun—a mere twenty-one days ago. Eight full weeks still lay ahead of them, and they were determined to make the best possible use of them.
Captain Feders still couldn't get to sleep. He stared at his watch: the hands crawled round with appalling slowness. He closed his eyes. And he felt how lust reached out with quivering tentacles into nothingness. And he saw only a hopeless void. All was dead. Life was a mere transition between death and death. All was rottenness.
The sentry on the gate yawned.
6. A SECTION OFFICER REQUIRED
“I was told to report to the General at ten,” said Lieutenant Krafft to the girl who looked up to see what he wanted.
“Then I must ask you to wait until that time, Lieutenant.”
Krafft looked pointedly at his watch. It was five minutes to ten. He drew attention to the fact and even tapped his wristwatch.
“Quite correct,” said the girl with friendly aloofness. “You’re five minutes early.”
The name of the girl he
