the sky for minutes at a time before they burn out. New ones shoot up at once, everywhere, and there are still the green, red and blue stars.
‘Going to be a bad do[97],’ says Kat.
The thunder of the guns gets stronger until it becomes a single dull roar, and then it breaks down again into individual bursts. The dry voiced machine-guns rattle. Above our heads the air is full of invisible menace, howling, whistling and hissing. This is from the smaller guns; but every so often comes the deep sound of the big crump shells, the really heavy stuff, moving through the dark and landing far behind us. They make a bellowing, throaty, distant noise, like a rutting stag, and they go far above the howl and the whistle of the small shells.
Searchlights begin to sweep the black sky. They skim across it like huge blackboard pointers[98], tapering down at the bottom. One of them pauses, shaking a little. At once another is beside it, they cross and there is a black, winged insect trapped and trying to escape: an airman. He wavers, is dazzled and falls.
We ram the iron posts in firmly at set intervals. There are always two men holding the roll while the others pay out the barbed-wire. It is that horrible wire with a lot of long spikes, close together. I am out of practice at paying it out, and rip my hand open.
After a few hours we have finished. But there is still some time before the trucks are due. Most of us lie down and sleep. I try to as well, but it is too cold. You can tell that we are not far from the sea, because you are always waking up from the cold.
At one point I do fall into a deep sleep. When I wake up suddenly with a jolt, I have no idea where I am. I see the stars and I see the rockets, and just for a moment I imagine that I have fallen asleep in the garden at home, during a fireworks party of some sort. I don’t know whether it is morning or evening, and I lie there in the pale cradle of dawn waiting for the gentle words which must surely come, gentle and comforting – am I crying? I put my hand to my face; it is baffling, am I a child? Smooth skin – it only lasts for a second and then I recognize the silhouette of Katczinsky. He is sitting there quite calmly, old soldier that he is, smoking his pipe – one of those with a fid over the bowl, of course. When he sees that I am awake he says, ‘That made you jump. It was only a detonator, it whizzed off into the bushes over there.’
I sit up; I feel terribly alone. It is good that Kat is there. He looks thoughtfully at the front and says, ‘Lovely fireworks. If only they weren’t so dangerous.’
A shell lands behind us. A couple of the new recruits jump up in fright. A few minutes later another shell comes over, closer than before. Kat knocks out his pipe. ‘Here we go.’
It has started. We crawl away as fast as we can. The next shell lands amongst us.
Some of the men scream. Green rockets go up over the horizon. Dirt flies up. Shrapnel buzzes. You can hear it landing when the noise of the blast has long gone.
Close by us there is a recruit, a blond lad, and he is terrified. He has pressed his face into his hands. His helmet has rolled off. I reach for it and try to put it on to his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet away and huddles in under my arm like a child, his head against my chest. His narrow shoulders are shaking, shoulders just like Kemmerich had.
I let him stay there. But to get some use out of his helmet I shove it over his backside, not as some kind of a joke, but deliberately, because it’s the most exposed area. Even though the flesh is solid, a wound there can be bloody painful, and besides, you have to be on your stomach for months in a military hospital, and afterwards you are pretty certain to have a limp.
There’s been a direct hit somewhere not far off. Between the impacts you can hear screaming.
At last it calms down. The shellfire has swept over us and moved on to the back line of reserve trenches. We risk a look out. Red rockets are shimmering in the sky. Probably there will be an attack.
It stays quiet where we are. I sit up and shake the recruit by the shoulder. ‘It’s all over, old son. We got through again.’
He looks around in bewilderment. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ I tell him.
He notices his helmet and puts it on his head. Slowly he comes to himself. Then suddenly he blushes scarlet and his face has a look of embarrassment. Cautiously he puts his hand to his rear end[99] and gives me an agonized look. I understand at once: the barrage scared the shit out of him. That wasn’t the precise reason that I put his helmet where I did – but all the same I comfort him. ‘No shame in that, plenty of soldiers before you have filled their pants when they came under fire for the first time. Go behind that bush, chuck your underpants away, and that’s that —’
He clears off. It gets quieter, but the screaming doesn’t stop. ‘What’s up, Albert?’ I ask.
‘A couple of the columns over there got direct hits.’
The screaming goes on and on. It can’t be men, they couldn’t scream that horribly.
‘Wounded horses,’ says Kat.
I have never heard a horse scream and I can hardly believe it. There is a whole world of pain in that sound, creation itself under torture, a wild and horrifying agony. We go pale. Detering sits up. ‘Bastards, bastards! For Christ’s sake shoot them!’
He is a farmer and used to handling horses. It really gets to him.
And as if on purpose the firing dies away almost completely. The screams of the animals become that much clearer. You can’t tell where it is coming from any more in that quiet, silver landscape, it is invisible, ghostly, it is everywhere, between the earth and the heavens, and it swells out immeasurably. Detering is going crazy and roars out, ‘Shoot them, for Christ’s sake, shoot them!’
‘They’ve got to get the wounded men out first,’ says Kat.
We stand up and try to see where they are. If we can actually see the animals, it will be easier to cope with. Meyer has some field glasses[100] with him. We can make out a dark group of orderlies with stretchers, and then some bigger things, black mounds that are moving. Those are the wounded horses. But not all of them. Some gallop off a little way, collapse, and then run on again. The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and its guts are trading out. It gets its feet caught up in them and falls, but it gets to its feet again.
Detering raises his rifle and takes aim. Kat knocks the barrel upwards. ‘Are you crazy?’
Detering shudders and throws his gun on to the ground.
We sit down and press our hands over our ears. But the terrible crying and groaning and howling still gets through, it penetrates everything.
We can all stand a lot, but this brings us out in a cold sweat. You want to get up and run away, anywhere just so as not to hear that screaming any more. And it isn’t men, just horses.
Some more stretchers are moved away from the dark mass. Then a few shots ring out. The big shapes twitch a little and then become less prominent. At last! But it isn’t over yet. No one can catch the wounded animals who have bolted in terror, their wide-open mouths filled with all that pain. One of the figures goes down on one knee, a shot – one horse collapses – and then there is another. The last horse supports itself on its forelegs, and moves in a circle like a carousel, turning around in a sitting position with its forelegs stiff – probably its back is broken. The soldier runs across
Going to be a bad do
blackboard pointers – указка для школьной доски
rear end
field glasses – бинокль
