"They won't come here. The grave is deep enough. And besides—" Mueller thought the foxes and the wolves had enough to eat in the open without digging up graves. "Nonsense," he said. "What made you think of that?" "It has happened."
Muecke stared at Mueller blankly. Another of these bone-headed fools, he thought. Always the wrong people get to be officers and the right ones get killed. Like Reicke.
Mueller shook his head. "Make a mound of the rest," he directed. "That is suitable. And put the cross at the head."
Mueller ordered the company to form up and march off. He shouted his commands louder than was necessary. He always had the feeling the older men did not take him seriously. They didn't, either.
Sauer, Immermann, and Graeber shoveled the rest of the earth into a mound. "The cross won't stand up for long," Sauer said. "The ground is too soft."
"Of course not."
"Not for three days."
"Are you related to Reicke?" Immermann asked.
"Shut up! He was all right. What do you know about it? You didn't meet him in your disciplinary company."
Immermann laughed. "That's all you have kept in your mind, isn't it? Disciplinary company—you ignorant bumpkin!" He was suddenly furious. "There were better people than you there."
"Shall we set up the cross?" Graeber asked. Immermann turned around. "Ah, our furlough boy. He's in a hurry."
"I suppose you wouldn't be in a hurry, eh?" Sauer asked.
"I'll get no furlough. You know that very well, you dung beetle."
"Sure. Because you wouldn't come back." "Perhaps I would come back."
Sauer spat.
Immermann laughed contemptuously. "Perhaps I'd even volunteer to .come back."
"Yes, perhaps. With you nobody can tell what's up. You have lots of stories to tell. Who knows what secrets you have?"
Sauer picked up the cross. The post had been sharpened to a point. He set it in place and hit it a few times with the broad side of his shovel. It sank in deep.
"There, you see?" he said to Graeber. "It won't stand up even three days." v
"Three days are long enough," Immermann replied. "I'll give you a piece of advice, Sauer. In three days the snow in the cemetery will have sunk so far that you can get at the gravestones. Fetch a stone cross from there and set it up here. Then your servile soul will be at rest."
"A Russian cross?"
"Why not? God is international. Or isn't even He any more?"
Sauer turned away. "You're a wit, aren't you? A genuine international wit!"
"I've become one. Become, Sauer. Earlier I was different. And the suggestion about the cross came from you. You made it yourself yesterday."
"Yesterday! We thought Reicke was a Russian then, you distorter of words!"
Graeber picked up the shovel. "I'm leaving," he declared.
"We're all through here, aren't we?"
"Yes, furlough boy," Immermann replied. "Yes, you model of prudence! We're all through here."
Graeber made no reply. Outbreaks like this were nothing new. He walked down the hill.
The section was quartered in a cellar, lighted by a hole in the roof. Under the hole four men were squatting and playing skat on a board. A couple of others were asleep in the corners. Sauer was writing a letter. The cellar was large and must have belonged to one of the party bigwigs; it was partially waterproof.
Steinbrenner came in. "Have you heard the latest news bulletins?"
"The radio's on the blink."
"Why? It's supposed to be kept in order."
"You fix it, baby," Immermann said. "The man who used to keep it in order has been lacking a head for the last two weeks."
"What's the matter with it?"
"We have no batteries for the set," Berning said.
"No batteries?"
"No." Immermann grinned at Steinbrenner. "But perhaps it will work if you stick the wires up your nose—you've always had a head full of electricity. Just try it."
Steinbrenner smoothed back his hair. "There are some people who won't hold their tongues until they get properly burned."
"Don't talk so mysteriously, Max," Immermann replied calmly. "You've already reported me several times. Everyone knows that. You're a sharp fellow. And it suits you nicely. Unhappily I'm an excellent mechanic and a good machine-gunner. Right now that sort of skill is more needed here than yours is. That's why you've had so little luck. How old are you really?"
"Shut your trap."
"About twenty, eh? Or just nineteen? In that time you've managed to put a fine life behind you. Five, six years of chasing Jews and betrayers of the people. My compliments! When I was twenty I chased nothing but girls."
"One can see that!"
"Yes," Immermann replied. "One can see that."
Muecke appeared in the doorway. "What's going on here?"
No one answered. Muecke annoyed them all.
"I asked what was going on here!"
"Nothing, sir," said Berning, who was nearest him. "We were just having a conversation."
Muecke looked at Steinbrenner. "Has something happened?"
"The latest news reports have come through." Steinbrenner straightened up and looked around. No one was interested. Only Graeber was listening. The card players went on playing stolidly. Sauer did not lift his head from his writing paper. The sleepers snored on.
"Attention!" Muecke shouted. "Are you all deaf? The latest news reports! Look alive! This is official!"
"Yes, sir," Immermann replied.
Muecke cast a glance at him. Immerman's face was alert and betrayed nothing. The card players spread their cards face down on the board. They did not push the hands together. That way they saved a second by being ready to go on playing at once. Sauer half straightened up from his letter.
Steinbrenner threw back his shoulders. "Important news! Announced in the 'Hour of the Nation.' Serious strikes in America. The steel industry is completely tied up. Most of the munitions works are at a standstill. Sabotage in the airplane industry. Demonstrations everywhere for immediate peace. The administration is shaky. Its overthrow is expected."
He paused. No one said anything. The sleepers had waked up and were scratching themselves. Through the hole in the roof melting snow dripped into a pail below. Muecke breathed noisily.
"Our U-boats have blockaded the entire American coast. Two huge troop transports and three freighters carrying war materials were sunk yesterday; that makes 34,000 tons this week alone. England is starving amidst her ruins. Shipping lanes have been broken up everywhere by our wolf packs. New secret weapons have been perfected. We now have bombers that can fly to America and back without landing. Our Atlantic coast is a giant fortress. If the enemy attempts an invasion we will chase them into the ocean just as we did before, in 1940. Heil Hitler!"
"Heil Hitler," about half the section responded indifferently.
The skat players took up their cards again. A lump of snow fell with a splash into the pail. "I wish we were quartered in a decent dugout," growled Schneider, a vigorous man with a short red beard.
"Party Member Steinbrenner," Immermann asked, "have you brought us any reports about Russia?"
"Why?"
"Because we're here. Some öf us are interested in the subject. Our comrade Graeber, for instance. The furlough boy."
Steinbrenner hesitated. He did not trust Immermann. But his Party loyalty triumphed. "The shortening of the front has been almost completed," he announced. 'The Russians are exhausted by their gigantic losses. New enlarged positions for the counterattack have been prepared. The strategic disposition of our reserves has been achieved. Our counteroffensive with the new weapons will be irresistible."
He half lifted his hand, then let it fall. He didn't say Heil Hitler again. Russia and Hitler no longer went together very well. It was hard to say anything inspiring on the subject; everyone saw for himself exactly what was happening. All at once Steinbrenner was like a frantic student making a final desperate effort to retriev
e an examination. "That of course isn't all by a long shot," he said. "The most important news is strictly secret. At this time it cannot be announced to the nation. But this much is absolutely certain; we will annihilate the enemy this year." Somewhat lamely he turned about and made his way off to the next quarters.
Muecke followed him. "Look at that brown-noser," one of sleepers said, and immediately fell back and started snoring again.
The skat players began to play. "Annihilate," Schneider said. "We annihilate them twice each year." He looked at his hand. "I bid twenty."
"The Russians are born traitors," Imrhermann announced. "In the Finnish war they purposely gave the appearance of being much weaker than they were. That was a low Bolshevik trick."
Sauer lifted his head. "Can't you ever leave us in peace? You know all about the Communists, don't you?"
"Of course. They were once our allies. Besides, that crack about the trick in Finland comes personally from our Reichs-marshal Goering. Any objections?"
"Children, just cut out the wrangling, will you?" someone said from beside the wall. "What's the matter with all of you today?"
They quieted down. Only the cards went on slapping against the board and the water dripped. Graeber squatted in his place. He knew what was the matter. It was always like this after executions and burials.
In the late afternoon crowds of wounded came through. Some of them were sent on immediately. They came with their bloody bandages out of the gray-white plain and moved on toward the pale horizon on the other side. It seemed as if they would never find a hospital and would somewhere sink into the endless gray-white. Most of them were silent. All were hungry.
For the remainder, who could not walk any farther and for whom there were no more ambulance cars, an emergency hospital was established in the church. The shell-torn ceiling was screened over and a dead-weary doctor and two assistants came in and began to operate. The door stood open as long as it was not dark and stretchers were carried in and out. The white light over the operating table hung like a bright tent in the golden dusk of the room. In one corner leaned what was left of the two images. Mary held her arms outstretched; she had no hands, and Christ had lost a leg; it looked as if they had crucified an amputee. The wounded did not often cry. The doctor still had anesthetics. Water boiled in kettles and nickel basins. Amputated limbs gradually filled a zinc bathtub that had come from the house of the company commander. From somewhere a dog had appeared. He stayed close to the door and every time they drove him away he came back.
"Where could he have come from?" Graeber asked. He was standing with Fresenburg near the house in which in the Tsar's time the priest had lived.
Fresenburg looked at the shaggy creature that trembled and held its head stretched far out. "From the woods, probably."
"What could he find in the woods? There's nothing there for him to eat."
"There is. Plenty. And not just in the woods. Everywhere." They walked closer. The dog turned its head watchfully, ready to flee. The two men stood still.
The dog was tall and thin with a reddish-gray coat and a long narrow head. 'That's no village cur," Fresenburg said. "That's a good dog."
He made a low clucking sound. The animal lifted its ears. Fresenburg clucked again and spoke to him.
"Do you think he's waiting here for food?" Graeber asked.
Frensburg shook his head. "There's plenty to eat out there. He hasn't come here for that. Here is light and something that resembles a house. And here there are human beings. I think he's looking for company."
A stretcher was carried out. On it lay someone who had died on the operating table. The dog leaped back a couple of yards. He leaped without effort as though propelled by a spring. Then he stood still and looked at Frensenburg. The latter spoke to him and took a slow step in his direction. Instantly the dog sprang back warily but then stopped and, barely perceptibly, wagged his tail a few times.
"He's afraid," Graeber said.
"Yes, naturally. But he's a good dog."
"And a man-eater."
Fresenburg turned around. "We're all that."
"Why?"
"We are. And we think, just like that dog, that we are still good. And just like him we are looking for a bit of warmth and light and friendship."
Fresenburg smiled with one side of his face. The other was almost immobile because of a broad scar. It looked as though it wepe dead, and Graeber always found it strange to watch the smile that died at the barrier in his face. It did not seem to be an accident.
"We're not different from other men. It's the war, that's all."
Fresenburg shook his head and with his walking stick tapped the snow from his puttees. "No, Ernst. We have lost our standards. For ten years we have been isolated—isolated in a hideous inhuman and ridiculous arrogance that cries to heaven. We have been proclaimed Herrenvolk whom the others have to serve as slaves." He laughed bitterly. "Herrenvolk—to obey every charlatan, every command—what has that to do with Herrenvolk? This is the answer here. And as usual it hits the innocent harder than the guilty."
Graeber stared at him. Fresenburg was the only human being out here that he trusted completely. They came from the same city and had known each other for a long time. "If you know all that," he said then, "why are you here?"
"Why am I here? Instead of sitting in a concentration camp? Or being shot for refusing to serve?"
"That's not what I mean. Weren't you too old to be drafted in 1939? Then why did you volunteer?"
"I was too old then. Things have changed since. Now they take older classes than mine. But that's not the point. And it is no excuse. Being here solves nothing. One simply argued oneself into it! Not to leave the fatherland in the lurch in time of war, no matter what the cause was or who was at fault or who had started it. It was a pretext. Exactly the same as the earlier pretext that one would go along in order to prevent something worse. That too was an excuse. For oneself. Nothing more!" He struck hard at the snow with his stick. The dog leaped away noiselessly behind the church. "We have tempted God, Ernst. Can you understand that?"
"No," Graeber replied. He did not want to understand it.
Fresenburg was silent for a time. "You can't understand it," he said then more calmly. "You are too young. You have hardly known anything except that hysterical monkey dance and the war. But I was in an earlier war. And I knew the time between." He smiled again; half his face smiled; the other half stayed rigid. The smile surged against it like a tired wave but could not cross it. "I wish I were an opera singer," he said. "A tenor with an empty head and a convincing voice. Or old. Or a child. No, not a child. Not for what's coming. The war is lost. You know that at least, don't you?"
"No."
"Any responsible general would have given it up long ago. -We're fighting here for nothing." He repeated, "For nothing. Not even for endurable terms of surrender," He lifted one hand toward the darkening horizon. "With us no one will negotiate any more. We have behaved like Attila and Genghis Khan. We have broken every agreement, every human law. We have—"
"That was the S.S.," Graeber said despairingly. He had met Fresenburg because he wanted to get away from Immermann, Sauer, and Steinbrenner; he had wanted to talk to him about the peaceful old city on the river; about the linden-bordered roads and about old times. But now it was even worse than before. Everything seemed jinxed these days. From the others he had not expected any help. But he had from Fresenburg, whom he had not seen for a long time in the confusion of the retreat—and it was just from him that he heard now what he had so long been unwilling to admit, what he had intended to think about only after he was home, and what he was more afraid of than anything.
"The S.S.," Fresenburg replied contemptuously. "The Gestapo, the liars and chiselers, the fanatics, the murderers and the insane—only for them are we still fighting. So that they can stay in power for a year longer. For that and for nothing else. The war was lost long ago."
It had become darker. The doors of the church wer
e being closed so that no light could escape. At the windows dark figures could be seen hanging blackout cloths. The entrances to the cellars and dugouts were being protected too. Fresenburg looked at them. "Moles, that's what we've become. In our damned souls too. We've certainly made glorious progress."
Graeber pulled an open package of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and offered them to him. Fresenburg waved them aside. "Smoke them yourself. Or take them with you. I have enough."
Graeber shook his head. "Take one—"
Fresenburg smiled briefly, and took a cigarette. "When do you leave?"
"I don't know. The papers haven't come through yet." Graeber drew the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled it. It was good to have cigarettes. Sometimes even better than friends. Cigarettes did not confuse one. They were silent and good.