All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich
Maria Remarque chapter one
We are at rest five miles behind the
front. Yesterday we were relieved, and now our
bellies are full of beef and haricot
beans.
We are satisfied and at peace.
Each man has another mess-tin full for
the evening; and, what is more, there is a
double ration of sausage and bread.
That puts a man in fine trim. We have not
had such luck as this for a long time.
The cook with his carroty head is
begging us to eat; he beckons with his
ladle to everyone that passes, and spoons
him out a great dollop.
He does not see how he can empty his stewpot
in time for coffee.
Tjaden and Muller have produced two washbasins and had them filled up to the
brim as a reserve. In Tjaden this is
a voracity, in Muller it is foresight.
Where Tjaden puts it all is a mystery, for
he is and always will be as thin as a
rake. What's more important still is the
issue of a double ration of smokes. Ten
cigars, 20 cigarettes, and two quids of
chew per man; now that is decent. I've
exchanged my chewing tobacco with
Katczinsky for his cigarettes, which means
I have forty altogether. That's enough for a
day. It is true we have no right to this
windfall. The Prussian is not so generous.
We have only a miscalculation to thank
for it.
Fourteen days ago we had to go up and relieve
the front line. It was fairly quiet on our
sector, so the quartermaster who remained
in the rear had requisitioned the usual
quantity of rations and provided for the
full company of one hundred and fifty men. But on the last day an astonishing number of English
heavies opened up on us with
high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our
position, so that we suffered severely
and came back only eighty strong. Last night
we moved back and settled down to get a
good sleep for once: Katczinsky is right
when he says it would not be such a bad
war if only one could eat a little more
sleep. In the line we have had next to
none, and Fourteen days is a long time at one
stretch. It was noon before the first of
us crawled out of our quarters. Half an
hour later every man had his mess-tin
and we gathered at the cook-house, which
smelt greasy and nourishing. At the head
of the queue of course were the hungriest---
little Albert Kropp, the clearest thinker
among us and therefore only a lance-
corporal; Muller, who still carries his
school textbooks with him, dreams of
examinations, and during the bombardment
mutters propositions in physics; Leer,
who wears a full beard and has a
preference for the girls from
officer's brothels. He swears that they
are obliged by an army order to wear
silk chemises and to bathe before
entertaining guests of the rank of
captain upwards. And as the fourth, myself,
Paul Baumer.
All four are nineteen years of age, and all four
joined up from the same class as
volunteers for the war. Close behind us
were our friends. Tjaden, a skinny locksmith
of our own age, the biggest eater of the
company. He sits down to eat as thin as a
grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug
in the family way; Haie Westhus, of the
same age, a peat-digger, who can easily
hold a ration-loaf in his hand and say:
guess what I've got in my fist; then
Detering, a peasant, who thinks of
nothing but his farm-yard and his wife; and finally
Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our
group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten,
forty years of age, with the face of soil,
blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable
nose for dirty weather, good food, and
soft jobs. Our gang formed the head of
the queue before the cook-house. We were
growing impatient, for the cook paid no
attention to us.
Finally Katczinsky called to him: "Say,
Heinrich, open
soup-kitchen. Anyone who can see the
beans are done." He shook his head
sleepily: "You must all be here first."
Tjaden grinned: "We are all here."
The sergeant-cook still took no notice.
"That may do for you," he said. "But where are
the others?" They won't be fed by you
to-day. They're
in the dressing-station or pushing up
daisies." The cook was quite disconcerted
as the facts dawned on him. He was
staggered.
"And I have cooked for one hundred and fifty men---" Kropp poked
him in the ribs. "Then for once we'll have
enough. Come on, begin!" Suddenly a vision
came over Tjaden.
His sharp, mousy features began to shine, his
eyes grew small with cunning, his jaws
twitched, and he whispered hoarsely: "Man!
then you've got bread for one hundred and fifty men too, eh?"
The sergeant-cook nodded absent-minded, and
bewildered. Tjaden seized him by the
tunic. "And sausage?" Ginger nodded again.
Tjaden's chaps quivered.
"Tobacco too?" "Yes, everything." Tjaden beamed:
"What a bean-feast! That's
all for us! Each man gets--- wait a bit--- yes,
practically two issues."
Then Ginger stirred himself and said: "That
won't do."
We got excited and began to crowd around. "Why
won't that do, you old carrot?" demanded
Katczinsky. "Eighty men can't have what is
meant for a hundred and fifty." "We'll soon
show you,"
growled Muller. "I don't care about the stew,
but I can only issue rations for eighty men,"
persisted Ginger. Katczinsky got angry. "You
might be generous for once. You haven't
drawn food for eighty men. You've drawn it for
the Second Company. Good. Let's have it
then. We are the Second Company." We began
to jostle the fellow.
No one felt kindly toward him, for it was his
fault that the food often came up to us
in line too late and cold. Under
shellfire he wouldn't bring his kitchen
up near enough, so that our soup-carriers
had to go much farther than those of
other companies. Now Bulcke of the First
Company is a much better fellow. He is as
fat as a hamster in winter, but he
trundles his pots when it comes to that
right up to the very front-line. We were
in just the right mood, and there would
certainly would have been a dust-up if
our company commander had not appeared.
He informed himself of the dispute, and
only remarked: "Yes, we did have heavy
losses yesterday." He glanced into the
dixie. "The beans look good."
Ginger nodded. "Cooked with meat and fat."
The lieutenant looked at us.
He knew what we were thinking. And he
knew many other things too, because he
came to the company as a non com. and
was promoted from the ranks. He lifted
the lid from the dixie again and sniffed.
Then passing on he said: "Bring me a plate
full. Serve out all the rations. We can do
with them."
Ginger looked sheepish as Tjaden danced
round him. "It doesn't cost you anything!
Anyone would think the quartermaster's
store belonged to him! And now get on
with it, you old blubber-sticker,
don't you miscount either." "You be
hanged!" Spat out Ginger. When things get
beyond him he throws up the sponge
altogether; he just goes to pieces. And as if
to show that all things were equal to
him, of his own free will he issued an
additional half pound of synthetic honey
to each man.
To-day is wonderfully good. The mail has
come, and almost every man has a few
letters and papers. We stroll over to the
meadow behind the billets. Krupp has the
round lid of a margarine tub under his
arm.
On the right side of the meadow a large
common latrine has been built, a roofed
and durable construction. But that is for
recruits who as yet have not learned how
to make the most of whatever comes their
way. We want something better. Scattered
about everywhere there are separate,
individual boxes for the same purpose.
They are square, neat boxes with wooden
sides all around, and have unimpeachably
satisfactory seats. On the sides are hand
grips enabling one to shift them about.
We move three together in a ring and sit
down comfortably. And it will be two
hours before we get up again. I well
remember how embarrassed we were as
recruits in barracks when we had to use
the general latrine. There were no doors
and twenty men sat side by side as in a
railway carriage, so that they could be
reviewed all at one glance, for soldiers
must always be under supervision. Since
then we have learned better than to be
shy about such trifling immodesties.
In time things far worse than that come
easy to us. Here in the open air though,
the business is entirely a pleasure. I no
longer understand why we should always
have shied at these things before. They
are, in fact, just as natural as eating and
drinking. We might perhaps have paid no
particular attention to them had they
not figured so large in our experience,
nor been such novelties in our minds--- to
the old hands they had long been a mere
matter of course. The soldier is on
friendly terms than other men with his
stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of
his vocabulary is derived from these
regions, and they give an intimate flavour
to expressions of his greatest joy as
well as his deepest indignation. It is
impossible to express oneself in any
other way so cleverly and pithily.
Our families and teachers will be
shocked when we go home, but here it is the
universal language.
Enforced publicity has in our eyes
restored the character of complete
innocence to all these things. More than
that, they are so much a matter of course
that their comfortable performance is
fully as much enjoyed as the playing of a
safe top running flush. Not for nothing
was the word "latrine-rumour" invented;
these places are the regimental gossip-
shop and common-rooms. We feel ourselves
for the first time being better off than
in any palatial white-tiled "convenience."
There it can be hygienic; here it is
beautiful. These are wonderfully care-free
hours. Over us is the blue sky. On the
horizon float the bright yellow, sunlit
observation-balloons, and the many little
white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells.
Often they rise in a sheaf as they follow
after an airman. We hear the muffled
rumble of the front only as a very
distant thunder, bumblebees droning by
quite drown it. Around us stretches the
flowery meadow. The grasses sway their
tall spears; the white butterflies
flutter around and float on the soft
warm wind of the late summer. We read
letters and newspapers and smoke. We take
off our caps and lay them down beside us.
The wind plays with our hair; it plays
with our words and thoughts.
The three boxes stand in the midst of
the glowing, red field poppies. We set
the lid of the margarine tub on our
knees and so have a good table for a
game of skat. Kropp has the cards with him.
After every misere ouverte we have a round
of nap. One could sit like this for ever.
The notes of an accordion float across
the billets. Often we lay aside the cards
and look about us. One of us will say:
"Well, boys...." Or "It was a near thing that
time...." And for a moment we fall silent.
There is in each of us a feeling of
constraint. We are all sensible of it; it
needs no words to communicate it. It
might easily have happened that we
should not be sitting here on our boxes
to-day;
it came damn near to that. And so
everything is new and brave, red poppies
and good food, cigarettes and summer
breeze. Kropp asks: "Anyone seen Kemmerich lately?"
He's up at St. Joseph's," I tell
him. Muller explains he has a flesh
wound in his thigh; a good blighty. We
decided to go and see him this afternoon.
Kropp pulls out a letter. "Kantorek sends
you all his best wishes." We laugh. Muller
throws his cigarette away and says: "I
wish he was here."
Kantorek had been our schoolmaster, a
stern little man in a grey tail-coat, with
a face like a shrew mouse. He was about
the same size as Corporal Himmelstoss,
the "terror of Klosterberg."
It is very queer that the unhappiness of
the world is so often brought on by
small men. They are so much more
energetic and uncompromising than the
big fellows. I've always taken good care
to keep out of sections with small
company commanders. They're mostly
confounded little martinets. During
drill-time Kantorek gave us long
lectures until the whole of our class
went, under his shepherding, to the
District Commandant and volunteered. I
can see him now, as he used to glare at
us through his spectacles and say in a
moving voice: "Won't you join up, Comrades?"
These teachers always carry their
feelings ready in their waistcoat
pockets, and trot them out by the hour.
But we didn't think of that then. There
was, indeed, one of us who hesitated and
did not want to fall into line. That was
Joseph Behm, a plump, homely fellow. But he
did allow himself to be persuaded,
otherwise he would have been ostracized.
And perhaps more of us thought as he did,
but no one could very well stand out
because at that time even ones parents
already with the word coward no one will
have the vaguest idea what we were in
for the wisest were just the poor and
simple people they knew the war to be a
misfortune whereas those who were better
off and should have been able to see
more clearly what the consequences would
be were beside themselves with joy catch
insky said that was a result of their
help
bringing it made them stupid and what
cat said he had thought about strange to
say Ben was one of the first to fall he
got hit in the eye during an attack and
we left him lying for dead we couldn't
bring him with us because we had to come
back helter skelter in the afternoon
suddenly we heard him call and saw him
crawling about in no-man's land he had
only been knocked unconscious because he
could not see and was mad with pain he
failed to keep under cover and so was
shot down before anyone could go and
fetch him naturally we couldn't blame
can Iraq for this where would the world
be if we brought everyone to book there
were thousands of Cantor X all of whom
were convinced they were acting for the
best in a way that cost them nothing and
that is why they let us down so badly
for us lads of 18 they ought have been
mediators and guides to the world
maturity the world of work of Duty of
culture of progress to the future we
often made fun of them and play jokes on
them but in our hearts we trusted them
the idea of authority which they
represented was associated in our minds
with a greater insight and a more humane
wisdom but the first death we saw a
shattered disbelief we had to recognize
that our generation was more to be
trusted than theirs it surpassed us only
in phrases and in cleverness the first
bombardment showed us our mistake and
under it the world as they had taught it
to us broke in pieces
they continue to write and talk we saw
the wounded and dying
well they taught that duty to one's
country is the greatest thing we already
knew that death rows are stronger but
for all that we were no mutineers no
deserters no cowards they were very free
with all these expressions we loved our
country as much as they we went
courageously into every action but also
we distinguished the false from true
we had suddenly learned to see and we
saw there was nothing of their world
left we were all at once terribly alone
and alone you must see it through before
going over to seek Emmerich we pack up
his things we will need them on the way
back in the dressing
there's great activity it reeks as ever
of carbolic puss and sweat we are
accustomed to a great deal in the
billets but this makes us feel faint we
asked for Kim Erick he lies in a large
room and receives us with feeble
expressions of joy and helpless
agitation while he was unconscious
someone had stolen his watch Muller
shakes his head I always told you that
nobody should carry his ghetto watch as
that molar is rather crude and tactless
otherwise he would hold his tongue for
anybody can see that Kim reek will never
come out of this place again whether he
finds his watch or not will make no
difference at the most one will only be
able to send it to his people
how goes at franz s crop kim breeches
head sinks not so bad but i have such a
damn pain in my foot we look at his bed
covering his leg lies under a wire
basket the bed covering arches over it I
kicked Muller in the shin for he's just
about to tell Kim rich but the orderlies
told us outside the Kim rich has lost
his foot the leg is amputated he looks
ghastly yellow and WAN
his face there are already the strain
lines that we know so well we've seen
them now hundreds of times they are not
so much lines as marks under the skin
the life no longer pulses it has already
pressed out the boundaries of the body
death is working through from within
it already has command in the eyes here
lies our comrade Kim rich who a little
while ago was roasting horse flesh with
us and squatting in the shell holes he
it is still and yet it is not he any
longer his features have become
uncertain faint like a photographic
plate from which two pictures have been
taken his voice sounds like ashes I
think of the time when we went away his
mother a good plump matron brought into
the station she wept continually her
face was bloated and swollen
Kim rich felt embarrassed for she was
the least composed of all she simply
dissolved into fat and water
she's got sight of me and took hold of
my arm again and again and implored me
to look after Franz out there indeed he
did have a face like a child in such
frail bones that after four weeks pat
carrying he already had flat feet but
how can a man look after anyone in the
field now you'll soon be going home says
crop you would have had to wait at least
three or four months for your leave Kim
rich nods I cannot bear to look at his
hands they're like wax under the nails
of the dirt of the trenches it shows
through blue-black like poison it
strikes me that these nails will
continue to grow like lean fantastic
seller plants long after Kim rich breeds
no more I see the picture before me they
twist themselves into corkscrews and
grow and grow and with them the hair and
the decaying skull just like grass and
good soil just like grass how can it be
possible
Muller leans over we've brought your
things Franz Kim Rich signed to his
hands
put them under the bed Muller death cell
Kim rich starts on again about the watch
how can one calm him without making him
suspicious Muller reappears with a pair
of Airmen's boots they are fine English
boots of soft yellow leather which reach
to the knees and lace up all the way
they are things to be coveted Moeller is
delighted at the sight of them he
matches their souls against his own
clumsy boots and says will you be taking
them with you then Franz we all three at
the same thought if he even should get
better he would be able to use only one
they are of no use to him but as things
are now it is a pity that they should
stay here the orderlies will of course
grab them as soon as he is dead won't
you leave them with us
Muller repeats Kim rich doesn't want to
there is most prized possessions well we
could exchange suggest molar again out
here one can make some use of them still
Kim rich is not to be moved I tread on
Muller's foot reluctantly
he puts the fine boots back again under
the bed we talked a little more and then
take our leave cheerio Franz I promised
him to come back in the morning
Mulder talks for doing so too
is thinking of the lace-up boots it
means to be on the spot
hemorrhage groans his feverish we get
hold of an orderly outside and ask him
to give Kim Richard of morphia he
refuses if we were to give morphia to
everyone we would have to have tubs full
you only attend officers properly says
Krupp viciously
I hastily intervene and give him a
cigarette he takes it are you usually
allowed to give it then I asked him he
is annoyed if you don't think so then
why do you ask I press a few more
cigarettes into his hand do us the favor
well alright
he says crop goes in with him he doesn't
trust him and wants to see we wait
outside Muller returns to the subject of
the boots they would fit me perfectly
these boots I gets blister after blister
do you think you'll last till tomorrow
after drill if he passes out in the
night we know where the boots crop
returns do you think he asks done for
said Muller emphatically we go back to
the huts I think of the letter they must
write tomorrow to Kim Richards mother
I'm freezing I could do with a tot of
rum Muller pulls up some grass and chews
it suddenly little crop throws his
cigarette away stamps on it savagely and
looking around him with a broken and
distracted face stammers damn shit a
damn shit we walk on for a long time
prof. is calm himself we understand he
all red out there every man gets like
that sometime
what does can't direct written to you
mother asking he laughs we are the iron
youth we all three smiled bitterly crop
rails is glad that he can speak yes
that's the way they think he's hundred
thousand Cantor X iron youth youth we
are none of us more than 20 years old a
young youth that is long ago we are old
folk
