Men in War by Andreas Latzko (best fiction novels to read txt) 📕

Like an overburdened steam-crane his left hand struggled toward his head, and when he at last succeeded in pushing it under his neck, he felt with a shudder that his skull offered no resistance and his hand slid into a warm, soft mush, and his hair, pasty with coagulated blood, stuck to his fingers like warm, moist felt.

“Dying!” went through him with a chill. To die there—all alone. And Weixler? He had to find out what had happened to—happened to–-

With a superhuman effort he propped his head up on his left hand high enough to have a view of a few paces along the trench. Now he saw Weixler, with his back turned, leaning on his right side against the trench wall, standing there crookedly, his left hand pressed against his body, his shoulders hunched as if he had a cramp. The captain raised himself a little higher and saw the ground and a broad, dark shadow that Weixler cast. Blood? He was bleeding? Or what? Surely that was blood. It couldn’t be anything but blood. And yet it stretched out so peculiarly and drew itself like a thin, red thread up to Weixler, up to where his hand pressed his body as though he wanted to pull up the roots that bound him to the earth.

The captain had to see! He pulled his head farther out from under the mound—and uttered a hoarse cry, a cry of infinite horror. The wretched man was dragging his entrails behind him!

“Weixler!” burst from him in a shudder of compassion.

The man turned slowly, looked down at Marschner questioningly, pale, sad, with frightened eyes. He stood like that only the fraction of a second, then he lost his balance, reeled, and fell down, and was lost from the captain’s circle of vision. Their glances scarcely had time to cross, the pallid face had merely flitted by. And yet it stood there, remained fixed in the air, with a mild, soft, plaintive expression about the narrow lips, an unforgettable air of gentle anxious resignation.

“He is suffering!” flashed through Marschner. “He is suffering!”—it exulted him. And a glow suffused his pallor. His fingers, sticky with blood, seemed to caress the air, until his head sank backward, and his eyes broke.

The first soldiers who penetrated the towering mound of earth to where he lay found him dead. But in spite of his ghastly wound, a contented, almost happy smile hovered about his lips.

On the big square before the old courthouse, which now served as regimental headquarters and bore the magic letters A.O.K. as a sort of cabalistic sign on its front, a military band played every afternoon from three to four at command of His Excellency. This little diversion was meant to compensate the civilian population for the many inconveniences that the quartering of several hundreds of staff officers and a number of lesser officers inevitably brought upon them. Then, too, according to His Excellency, such an institution helped considerably to promote the popularity of the army and inspire patriotism in school children and the masses. In the interest of the right conduct of the war the strict commander deemed it highly essential to foster a right attitude in the public and to encourage friendly relations between military and civilian authorities—while fully preserving his own privileges. It was essential to a successful continuation of the war. Incidentally, the fact that the staff officers, with His Excellency at their head, usually took their black coffee at just about this time had helped a good deal to bring about these afternoon concerts.

It was indeed delightful to sit in the shade of the centenarian plane-trees, whose intertwining branches overarched the entire square like the nave of a cathedral. The autumn sun cast a dull glow on the walls of the houses round about, and shed golden rings through the thick foliage on the small round tables arrayed in long rows in front of the coffeehouse. There was a reserved row for the staff officers set in snowy linens, with little flower vases and fresh crisp cakes, which the sergeant of the commissary brought punctually at three o’clock every day from the field bakery, where they had been baked with particular care under the personal supervision of the chef especially for His Excellency and staff.

It was a beautiful gay picture of lively, varied metropolitan life that surged about the music pavilion. Every one seemed as joyous and carefree as on the Graben in Vienna on a sunny spring Sunday in times of undisturbed peace. The children crowded around the orchestra, beat the measure, and applauded enthusiastically after every piece. The streets leading into the square were filled with giggling girls and students wearing bright caps; while the haute-volée, the wives of the resident officials and merchants, sat in the confectioner’s shop on the square, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to show their righteous indignation at the daring millinery, transparent hose, and little more than knee-length skirts of a certain class of women who had forced their way into the town and, despite all protests and orders, were shamelessly plying their trade in broad daylight.

But the chief tone was given by the transient officers. Whether on furlough or on their way back to the front, they all had to pass through this town, and enjoyed in deep draughts this first or last day of freedom. Besides, if anything was needed at the front—horse-shoe nails, saddle-soap, sanitary appliances, or bottled beer—this first little “big town” was the quickest, most convenient place to buy it in. An unlucky or an unpopular man merely received a commendation for his bravery, and that settled him. But the man who enjoyed his commanding officer’s favor was given the preference to do the shopping here as a reward. And an amazing ingenuity developed in discovering immediate necessities. A secret arithmetical relation undeniably existed between the consumption of charcoal, axle grease, etc., by individual troop divisions and the distance of their outposts from this favorite provisioning station.

Of course, the pleasure did not last long. There was just enough time for a hot tub-bath, for showing off one’s best newly-pressed uniform once or twice on the main streets, for taking two meals at a table spread with a tablecloth, and for spending a short night in a comfortable bed—with, or, if the man could not help it, without caresses—and then off again, depressed and irritable, off to the maddeningly overcrowded railroad station, back to the front, into the damp trench or the sunbaked block house.

The greed of life in these young officers, who promenaded, hungry-eyed, through the town, the racing of their blood, like a diver who fills his lungs full in one second, had gradually infected the entire, boresome little place. It tingled, it foamed, it enriched itself and became frivolous; it could not get enough sensations, now that it stood in the center of world activities and had a claim upon real events.

Close-packed, the crowd surged past the music in holiday attire and holiday mood on this ordinary week-day, quivering to the rhythm of the Blue Danube Waltz, which the orchestra was playing catchingly, with a roll of drums and a clash of cymbals. The whole spectacle brought to mind the goings-on behind the scenes in a huge playhouse during the performance of a tragedy with choruses and mob scenes. Nothing was seen or heard here of the sanguinary piece being enacted at the front. The features of the actors relaxed, they rested, or threw themselves into the gay hubbub, heartily glad not to know how the tragedy was progressing; exactly as real actors behind the scenes fall back into their unprofessional selves until they get their next cue.

Sitting in the shade of the old trees, over coffee and cigars, comfortably watching these doings, one might easily be deluded into thinking that the drama taking place at the front was nothing but a jolly spectacular play. From this point of view the whole war showed up like a life-giving stream that washes orchestras ashore, brings wealth and gaiety to the people, is navigated by promenading officers, and directed by portly, comfortable generals. No suggestion of its bloody side, no roar of artillery reaching your ears, no wounded soldier dragging in his personal wretchedness and so striking a false note in the general jollification.

Of course, it had not always been like that. In the first days, when the daily concert still had the charm of novelty, all the regular, emergency and reserve hospitals in the neighborhood had poured their vast number of convalescents and slightly wounded men into the square. But that lasted only two days. Then His Excellency summoned the head army physician to a short interview and in sharp terms made it clear to the crushed culprit what an unfavorable influence such a sight would have upon the public, and expressed the hope that men wearing bandages, or maimed men, or any men who might have a depressing effect on the general war enthusiasm, should henceforth remain in the hospitals.

He was not defrauded of his hope. No disagreeable sight ever again marred his pleasure when, with his favorite Havana between his teeth, he gazed past the long row of his subordinates out on the street. No one ever went by without casting a shy, deferential side-glance at the omnipotent director of battles, who sat there like any other ordinary human being, sipping his coffee, although he was the celebrated General X, unlimited master of hundreds of thousands of human lives, the man the papers liked to call the “Victor of –-.” There was not a human being in the town whose fate he could not have changed with one stroke of his pen. There was nothing he could not promote or destroy as he saw fit. His good will meant orders for army supplies and wealth, or distinction and advancement; his ill will meant no prospects at all, or an order to march along the way that led to certain death.

Leaning back comfortably in the large wicker chair, a chair destined in all likelihood some day to become an object of historic interest, the Powerful One jested gaily with the wife of his adjutant. He pointed to the street, where the crowds surged in the brilliant sunshine, and said with a sort of satisfied, triumphant delight in his tone:

“Just look! I should like to show this picture to our pacifists, who always act as though war were nothing but a hideous carnage. You should have seen this hole in peace times. It was enough to put you to sleep. Why, the porter at the corner is earning more to-day than the biggest merchant used to earn before the war. And have you noticed the young fellows who come back from the front? Sunburnt, healthy and happy! Most of them before the war were employed in offices. They held themselves badly and were dissipated and looked cheesy. I assure you, the world has never been so healthy as it is now. But if you look at your newspapers, you read about a world-catastrophe, about a blood-drained Europe, and a whole lot of other stuff.”

He raised his bushy white eyebrows until they reached the middle of his bulging forehead, and his small, piercing black eyes skimmed observantly over the faces of those present.

His Excellency’s pronouncement was a suggestion to the others and was immediately taken up. At every table the conversation grew animated, the benefits of the war were told over, and the wits cracked jokes at the expense of the pacifists. There was not a single man in the whole