All Quiet on the Western Front / На Западном фронте без перемен. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Эрих Мария Ремарк

      We could not do without Katczinsky; he has a sixth sense. There are men like him everywhere, but you can’t tell who they are just by looking. Every company has one or two of them. Katczinsky is the sharpest I know. I think he’s a shoemaker by trade, but that’s got nothing to do with it – he’s a master of everything. It’s good to be a friend of his. Kropp and I both are, and Haie Westhus half belongs to the group as well, but he is really only an instrument, working on Kat’s orders whenever something’s going on that needs a strong right arm, then he’s a good man to have around.

      For example, we turn up one night in some completely unknown place, a miserable dump[71] where you can see at a glance that it has been stripped of everything that wasn’t screwed down[72]. We’re quartered in a small, dark, factory building that has only just been fitted up for use. It has beds in it, or rather, bedsteads, a couple of planks with wire-mesh between them.

      Wire-mesh is hard. We haven’t got a blanket to cover it with, we need ours to put over us. Tarpaulin is too thin.

      Kat sizes it up and says to Haie Westhus, ‘Come on.’ Off they go into this completely unknown place. Half an hour later they are back with their arms full of straw. Kat has found some stables and that’s where the straw comes from. We could sleep warmly now, if only we weren’t so damned hungry.

      Kat asks a gunner who has already been in the area for a while, ‘Is there a canteen anywhere round here?’

      He laughs. ‘Not a chance. There’s nothing. You won’t find a crust of bread round here.’

      ‘Aren’t there any locals left, then?’

      He spits. ‘Oh yes, there are one or two. But they just hang around every field kitchen they see and scrounge what they can.’ That’s pretty bad. In that case we’ll just have to tighten our belts and wait until tomorrow when the rations come up.

      Then I see Kat putting his cap on. ‘Where are you off to, Kat?’ ‘Just for a sniff around.’ He slopes out.

      The gunner grins sarcastically. ‘Sniff away. Mind you don’t strain yourself picking things up.’

      We lie down, disappointed, and wonder whether to break into our iron rations[73] or not. But we don’t want to risk being left without. So we try to get a bit of shut-eye instead.

      Kropp breaks a cigarette in two and gives me half. Tjaden describes his local speciality, broad beans cooked with bacon. He is scathing about people who try to cook it without the right chopped herbs. But the main thing is that the ingredients have to be cooked together – the potatoes, beans and bacon must not, for God’s sake[74], be cooked separately. Somebody grumbles that he will chop Tjaden into the right herbs if he doesn’t shut up at once. And then it is quiet in the big room. Only a couple of candles flicker in the necks of empty bottles, and the gunner spits from time to time.

      We are already dozing a bit when the door opens and Kat appears. I think I am dreaming: he is carrying two loaves under his arm, and a blood-stained sandbag full of horsemeat in his hand.

      The gunner’s pipe drops out of his mouth. He feels the bread. ‘Straight up, it’s real bread, and still warm.’

      Kat doesn’t say another thing. He has the bread and that is it; nothing else is of any importance. I’m quite sure that if he were dropped in the desert he would get a meal of dates, roast meat and wine together within the hour.

      He gives Haie the brief command, ‘Chop some wood.’

      From under his coat he brings out a frying-pan, then he takes a handful of salt and a chunk of fat from a pocket – he has thought of everything. Haie gets a fire going on the floor. Its crackling can be heard all through the empty factory. We scramble out of bed.

      The gunner isn’t sure what to do. He wonders whether or not to congratulate Kat, so that maybe he will get a share too. But Katczinsky doesn’t even notice him – he might as well be invisible. So he wanders off, swearing.

      Kat has the knack of cooking horsemeat so that it is really tender. You mustn’t put it straight into the pan or it will be too tough. It has to be parboiled in a little water beforehand. We sit around in a circle with our knives, and fill our bellies.

      That’s Kat. If there were some place where something edible could be found only in one particular hour in the year, then he would turn up precisely during that hour as if led there by some kind of inspiration. He’d put on his cap, go out, make a bee-line for it, and find it.

      He can find anything – camp stoves and firewood when it is cold, hay and straw, tables, chairs – but above all he can find food. No one understands how he does it, and it’s as if he conjures it out of thin air. His masterpiece was four cans of lobster. Mind you[75], we would really have preferred dripping[76] instead.