The Train Was On Time Part 1

The train was on time.

by Heinrich Boll.

I have known many adventures in my time: the creation of postal routes, Sahara rebellions, South America...but war is not really an adventure at all, it is only a subst.i.tute for adventure.... War is a disease. Like typhus.Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Pilote de Guerre

As they walked through the dark underpa.s.s they could hear the train rumbling up to the platform overhead, and the resounding voice came smoothly over the loudspeaker: "The troop-train now arriving from Paris will depart for Przemysl via...."

Then they had climbed the steps to the platform and were standing by the leave-train from which beaming soldiers were emerging, weighed down with huge packages. The platform quickly emptied, it was the usual scene. At some of the windows stood girls or women or a very silent, grim-faced father...and the resounding voice was telling people to hurry. The train was on time.

"Why don't you get on?" the chaplain asked the soldier anxiously.

"Get on?" asked the soldier, amazed. "Why, I might want to hurl myself under the wheels, I might want to desert...eh? What's the hurry? I might go crazy, I've a perfect right to, I've a perfect right to go crazy. I don't want to die, that's what's so horrible-that I don't want to die." His voice was cold and hard, as if the words were pouring from his lips like ice. "Don't say any more! I'll get on all right, there's always a spot somewhere...yes...yes, don't mind me, pray for me!" He grasped his pack, boarded the train through the nearest door, let down the window from inside, and leaned out, while overhead the resounding voice hung like a cloud of mucus: "The train is now leaving...."

"I don't want to die!" he shouted. "I don't want to die, but the terrible thing is that I'm going to die...soon!" The black figure on that cold gray platform retreated farther and farther into the distance...farther and farther, until the station was swallowed up by night.

Now and again what appears to be a casually spoken word will suddenly acquire a cabalistic significance. It becomes charged and strangely swift, races ahead of the speaker, is destined to throw open a chamber in the uncertain confines of the future and to return to him with the deadly accuracy of a boomerang. Out of the smalltalk of unreflecting speech, usually from among those halting, colorless goodbyes exchanged beside trains on their way to death, it falls back on the speaker like a leaden wave, and he becomes aware of the force, both frightening and intoxicating, of the workings of fate. To lovers and soldiers, to men marked for death and to those filled with the cosmic force of life, this power is sometimes given, without warning; a sudden revelation is conferred on them, a bounty and a burden...and the word sinks, sinks down inside them.

As Andreas was slowly groping his way back into the center of the car, the word soon soon entered him like a bullet, painlessly and almost imperceptibly penetrating flesh, tissue, cells, nerves, until at some point it caught, like a barbed hook, exploded, and ripped open a savage wound, making blood pour out...life, pain.... entered him like a bullet, painlessly and almost imperceptibly penetrating flesh, tissue, cells, nerves, until at some point it caught, like a barbed hook, exploded, and ripped open a savage wound, making blood pour out...life, pain....

Soon, he thought, and felt himself turning pale. At the same time he did all the usual things, almost unconsciously. He struck a match, lighting up the heaps of sitting, stretched out, sleeping soldiers who lay around, across, under, and on top of their luggage. The smell of stale tobacco smoke was mixed with the smell of stale sweat and that strangely gritty dirt which clings to all soldiers in the ma.s.s. The flame of the dying matchstick flared up with a final hiss, and in that last glow he saw, over by the narrowing corridor, a small empty s.p.a.ce. He carefully picked his way toward it, his bundle tucked under one arm, his cap in his hand.

Soon, he thought, and the shock of fear lay deep, deep. Fear and absolute certainty. Never again, he thought, never again will I see this station, never again the face of my friend, the man I abused right up to the last moment...never again. Soon! He reached the empty s.p.a.ce, set his pack carefully on the floor in order not to wake the sleeping men around him, and sat down on it so he could lean back against a compartment door. Then he tried to arrange his legs as comfortably as possible; he stretched the left one carefully past the face of one sleeping soldier, and placed the right one across a piece of luggage that was s.h.i.+elding the back of another. In the compartment behind him a match flared up, and someone began to smoke silently in the dark. By turning slightly to one side he could see the glowing tip of the cigarette, and sometimes, when the unknown man drew on it, the reflection spread over an unfamiliar soldier's face, gray and tired, with bitter creases in it, starkly and terribly sober.

Soon, he thought. The rattle of the train, it was all so familiar. The smell, the desire to smoke, the feeling he had to smoke. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep. The somber outlines of the city moved past the window. Somewhere in the distance searchlights were raking the sky, like long spectral fingers parting the blue cloak of the night...from far away came the firing of antiaircraft guns...and those darkened, mute, somber houses. When would this Soon be? The blood flowed out of his heart, flowed back into his heart, circling, circling, life was circling, and all this pulse beat said was: Soon! He could no longer say, no longer even think: "I don't want to die." As often as he tried to form the sentence he thought: I'm going to die...soon.

Behind him a second gray face now showed up in the glow of a cigarette, and he could hear a subdued, weary murmuring. The two unknown men were talking.

"Dresden," said one voice.

"Dortmund," the other.

The murmuring continued, became more animated. Then another voice swore, and the murmuring subsided again; it petered out, and again there was only one cigarette behind him. It was the second cigarette, and finally this one went out too, and again there was this gray darkness behind and beside him, and facing him the black night with the countless houses, all mute, all black. Only in the distance those silent, uncannily long, spectral fingers of the searchlights, still groping across the sky. It seemed as if the faces belonging to those fingers must be grinning, eerily grinning, cynically grinning like the faces of usurers and swindlers. "We'll get you," said the thin-lipped, gaping mouths belonging to those fingers. "We'll get you, we'll grope all night long." Maybe they were looking for a bedbug, a tiny bug in the cloak of the night, those fingers, and they would find the bug....

Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. When is Soon? What a terrible word: Soon. Soon can mean in one second, Soon can mean in one year. Soon is a terrible word. This Soon compresses the future, shrinks it, offers no certainty, no certainty whatever, it stands for absolute uncertainty. Soon is nothing and Soon is a lot. Soon is everything. Soon is death....

Soon I shall be dead. I shall die, soon. You have said so yourself, and someone inside you and someone outside you has told you that this Soon will be fufilled. One thing is sure, this Soon will be in wartime. That's a certainty, that's a fact.

How much longer will the war go on?

It can last for another year before everything finally collapses in the East, and if the Americans in the West don't attack, or the British, then it will go on for another two years before the Russians reach the Atlantic. They will attack, though. But all in all it will last another year at the very least, the war won't be over before the end of 1944. The way this whole apparatus is built up, it's too obedient, too cowardly, too docile. So I may still have anything from one second to one year. How many seconds are there in a year? Soon I'm going to die, before the war is over. I shan't ever know peacetime again. No more peacetime. There'll be no more of anything, no music...no flowers...no poetry...no more human joy; soon I'm going to die.

This Soon is like a thunderclap. This little word is like the spark that sets off the thunderstorm, and suddenly, for the thousandth part of a second, the whole world is bright beneath this word.

The smell of bodies is the same as ever. The smell of dirt and dust and boot polish. Funny, wherever there are soldiers there's dirt. The spectral fingers had found the bug....

He lit a fresh cigarette. I'll try and picture the future, he thought. Maybe it's an illusion, this Soon, maybe I'm overtired, maybe it's tension or nerves. He tried to imagine what he would do when the war was over. He would...he would...but there was a wall he couldn't get over, a totally black wall. He couldn't imagine anything. Of course he could force himself to complete the sentence in his mind: I'll go to university...I'll take a room somewhere...with books...cigarettes...go to university...music...poetry...flowers. But even as he forced himself to complete the sentence in his mind he knew it wouldn't happen. None of it would happen. Those aren't dreams, those are pale, colorless thoughts devoid of weight, blood, all human substance. The future has no face now, it is cut off somewhere; and the more he thought about it the more he realized how close he was to this Soon. Soon I'm going to die, that's a certainty that lies between one year and one second. There are no more dreams....

Soon. Maybe two months. He tried to imagine it in terms of time, to discover whether the wall rose this side of the next two months, that wall he would not be going beyond. Two months, that meant the end of November. But he can't grasp it in terms of time. Two months: an image that has no power. He might just as well say: three months or four months or six, the image evokes no echo. January, he thought. But the wall isn't there at all. A strange, unquiet hope awakens: May, he thought with a sudden leap ahead. Nothing. The wall is silent. There's no wall anywhere. There's nothing. This Soon...this Soon is only a frightening bogey. November, he thought. Nothing! A fierce, terrible joy springs to life. January: January of next year, a year and a half away-a year and a half of life! Nothing! No wall!

He sighed with relief and went on thinking, his thoughts now racing across time as over light, very low hurdles. January, May, December! Nothing! And suddenly he was aware that he was groping in a void. The place where the wall rose up couldn't be grasped in terms of time. Time was irrelevant. Time had ceased to exist. And yet hope still remained. He had leaped so splendidly over the months. Years....

Soon I'm going to die, and he felt like a swimmer who knows he is near the sh.o.r.e and finds himself suddenly flung back into the tide by the surf. Soon! That's where the wall is, the wall beyond which he will cease to exist, will cease to be on this earth.

Krakow, he thought suddenly, and his heart missed a beat as if an artery had twisted itself into a knot, blocking off the blood. He is on the right track-Krakow! Nothing! Farther. Przemysl! Nothing! Lvov! Nothing! Then he starts racing: Cernauti, Ja.s.sy, Kis.h.i.+nev, Nikopol! But at the last name he already senses that this is only make-believe, make-believe like the thought: I'll go to university. Never again, never again will he see Nikopol! Back to Ja.s.sy. No, he won't see Ja.s.sy again either. He won't see Cernauti again, Lvov! Lvov he'll see again, Lvov he'll reach alive! I'm mad, he thought, I'm out of my mind, this means I'll die between Lvov and Cernauti! What a crazy idea...he forced himself to switch off his thoughts and started smoking again and staring into the face of the night. I'm hysterical, I'm crazy, I've been smoking too much, talking, talking for nights on end, days on end, with no sleep, no food, just smoking, it's enough to make anyone lose their mind....

I must have something to eat, he thought, something to drink. Food and drink keep body and soul together. This d.a.m.n smoking all the time! He started fumbling with his pack, but while he peered toward his feet in the dark, trying to find the buckle, and then began rummaging around in his pack where sandwiches and underwear, tobacco, cigarettes, and a bottle of schnapps all lay in a heap, he became aware of a leaden, implacable fatigue that clogged his veins...he fell asleep...his hands on the open pack, one leg-the left-next to a face he had never seen, one leg-the right-across someone's luggage, and with his tired and by now dirty hands resting on his pack he fell asleep, his head on his chest....

He was awakened by someone treading on his fingers. A stab of pain, he opened his eyes; someone had pa.s.sed by in a hurry, b.u.mped him in the back and trodden on his hands. He saw it was daylight and heard another resounding voice hospitably announcing a station name, and he realized it was Dortmund. The man who had spent the night behind him smoking and murmuring was getting out, cursing as he barged along the corridor; for that unknown gray face, this was home. Dortmund. The man next to him, the one whose luggage his right leg had been resting on, was awake and sat up on the cold floor of the corridor, rubbing his eyes. The man on the left, whose face his left foot was resting against, was still asleep. Dortmund. Girls carrying steaming pots of coffee were hurrying up and down the platform. The same as ever. Women were standing around weeping; girls being kissed, fathers...it was all so familiar: he must be crazy.

But, to tell the truth, all he knew was that the instant he opened his eyes he knew that Soon was still there. Deep within him the little barb had drawn blood, it had caught and would never let go now. This Soon had grabbed him like a hook, and he was going to squirm on it, squirm until he was between Lvov and Cernauti....

Like lightning, in the millionth part of a second it took him to wake up, came the hope that this Soon would have disappeared, like the night, a bogey in the wake of endless talking and endless smoking. But it was still there, implacably there....

He sat up, his eye fell on his pack, still half open, and he stuffed back a s.h.i.+rt that had slipped out. The man on his right had let down a window and was holding out a mug into which a thin, tired girl was pouring coffee. The smell of the coffee was horrible, thin steam that made him feel queasy; it was the smell of barracks, of army cookhouses, a smell that had spread all over Europe...and that was meant to spread all over the world. And yet (so deep are the roots of habit) and yet he also held out his mug for the girl to fill; the gray coffee that was as gray as a uniform. He could smell the stale exhalation from the girl; she must have slept in her clothes, gone from train to train during the night, lugging coffee....

She smelled penetratingly of that vile coffee. Perhaps she slept right up close to the coffeepot as it stood on a stove to keep hot, slept until the next train arrived. Her skin was gray and rough like dirty milk, and wisps of her scanty, pale-black hair crept out from under a little cap, but her eyes were soft and sad, and when she bent over to fill his mug he saw the charming nape of her neck. What a pretty girl, he thought: everyone will think she's ugly, and she's pretty, she's beautiful...she has delicate little fingers too...I could spend hours watching her pour my coffee; if only the mug had a hole, if only she would pour and pour, I would see her soft eyes and that charming nape, and if only that resounding voice would shut up. Everything bad comes from those resounding voices; those resounding voices started the war, and those resounding voices regulate the worst war of all, the war at railway stations. To h.e.l.l with all resounding voices!

The man in the red cap was waiting obediently for the resounding voice that had to say its piece, then the train got under way, lighter by a few heroes, richer by a few heroes. It was daylight but still early: seven o'clock. Never again, never ever again will I pa.s.s through Dortmund. How strange, a city like Dortmund; I've pa.s.sed through it often and have never been in the town itself. Never ever will I know what Dortmund is like, and never ever again will I see this girl with the coffeepot. Never again; soon I'm going to die, between Lvov and Cernauti. My life is now nothing but a specific number of miles, a section of railway line. But that's odd, there's no front between Lvov and Cernauti, and not many partisans either, or has there been some glorious great cave-in along the front overnight? Is the war suddenly, quite suddenly, over? Will peace come before this Soon? Some kind of disaster? Maybe the divine beast is dead, a.s.sa.s.sinated at last, or the Russians have launched an attack on all fronts and swept everything before them as far as between Lvov and Cernauti, and capitulation....

There was no escape, the sleeping men had woken up, they were beginning to eat, drink, chat....

He leaned against the open window and let the chill morning wind beat against his face. I'll get drunk, he thought, I'll knock back a whole bottle, then I won't know a thing, then I'll be safe at least as far as Breslau. He bent down, hurriedly opened his pack, but an invisible hand restrained him from grasping the bottle. He took out a sandwich and quietly and slowly began to chew. How terrible, to have to eat just before one's death. Soon I'm going to die, yet I still have to eat. Slices of bread and sausage, air-raid sandwiches packed for him by his friend the chaplain, a whole package of sandwiches with plenty of sausage in them, and the terrible thing was that they tasted so good.

He leaned against the open window, quietly eating and chewing, from time to time reaching down into his open pack for another sandwich. Between mouthfuls he sipped the lukewarm coffee.

It was terrible to look into the drab houses where the slaves were getting ready to march off to their factories. House after house, house after house, and everywhere lived people who suffered, who laughed, people who ate and drank and begat new human beings, people who tomorrow might be dead; the place was teeming with human life. Old women and children, men, and soldiers too. Soldiers were standing at windows, one here, one there, and each man knew when he would be on the train again, traveling back to h.e.l.l....

"Hey there, mate," said a husky voice behind him, "want to join us in a little game?" He swung round: "Yes!" he said without thinking, at the same time catching sight of a deck of cards in a soldier's hand: the soldier, who was grinning at him, needed a shave. I said Yes, he thought, so he nodded and followed the soldier. The corridor was deserted except for two men who had taken themselves off with their luggage to the vestibule, where one of them, a tall fellow with blond hair and slack features, was sitting on the floor, grinning.

"Find anybody?"

"Yes," said the unshaven soldier in his husky voice.

Soon I'm going to die, thought Andreas, squatting down on his pack, which he had brought along. Each time he put down the pack his steel helmet rattled, and now the sight of the steel helmet reminded him that he had forgotten his rifle. My rifle, he thought, it's standing propped up in Paul's closet behind his raincoat. He smiled. "That's right, mate," said the blond fellow. "Forget your troubles and join the game."

The two men had made themselves very snug. They were sitting by a door, but the door was barricaded, the handle tightly secured with wire, and luggage had been stacked up in front of it. The unshaven soldier took a pair of pliers out of his pocket-he was wearing regular blue work pants-he took out the pliers, fished out a roll of wire from somewhere under the luggage, and began to wind fresh wire still more tightly around the door handle.

"That's right, mate," said the blond fellow. "They can kiss our a.r.s.es till we get to Przemysl. You're going that far, aren't you? I see you are," he said when Andreas nodded.

Andreas soon realized they were drunk; the unshaven soldier had a whole battery of bottles in his carton, and he pa.s.sed the bottles around. First they played blackjack. The train rattled, daylight grew stronger, and they stopped at stations with resounding voices and stations without resounding voices. It filled up and emptied, filled up and emptied, and all the time the three men stayed in their corner playing cards.

Sometimes, at a station, someone outside would rattle furiously at the locked door and swear, but they would only laugh and go on with their game and throw the empty bottles out of the window. Andreas didn't think about the game at all, these games of chance were so wonderfully simple there was no need to think, your mind could be somewhere else....

Paul would be up by now, if he had slept at all. Maybe there had been another air-raid alarm, and he hadn't had any sleep. If he had slept, then it could only have been for a few hours. He must have got home at four. Now it was almost ten. So he had slept till eight, then got up, washed, read ma.s.s, prayed for me. He prayed for me to be happy because I had denied human happiness.

"Pa.s.s!" he said. Marvelous-you just said "Pa.s.s!" and had time to think....

Then he would have gone home and smoked cigarette b.u.t.ts in his pipe, had a bite to eat, some air-raid sandwiches, and gone off again. Some place or other. Maybe to a girl having an illegitimate baby by a soldier, maybe to a mother, or maybe to the black market to buy a few cigarettes.

"Flush," he said.

He had won again. The money in his pocket made quite a packet now.

"You're a lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said the soldier who needed a shave. "Drink up, my friends!" He pa.s.sed the bottle around again, he was sweating, and beneath the mask of coa.r.s.e joviality his face was very sad and preoccupied. He shuffled the cards...a good thing I don't have to shuffle them. I need one more minute to think about Paul, to concentrate on Paul, tired and pale; now he's walking through the ruins and praying, all the time. I gave him h.e.l.l, you should never give anyone h.e.l.l, not even a sergeant....

"Three of a kind," he said, "and a pair." He had won again.

The other men laughed, they didn't care about the money, all they wanted was to kill time. What a laborious, frightful business it was, this killing time, over and over again that little seconds-hand racing invisibly beyond the horizon, over and over again you threw a heavy dark sack over it, in the certain knowledge that the little hand went racing on, relentlessly on and on....

"Nordhausen!" proclaimed a resounding voice. "Nordhausen!" The voice announced the name of the station just as he was shuffling the cards. "Troop-train now departing for Przemysl via..." and then it said: "All aboard and close the doors!" How normal it all was. He slowly dealt the cards. It was already close on eleven. They were still drinking schnapps, the schnapps was good. He made a few complimentary remarks about the schnapps to the soldier who needed a shave. The train had filled up again. They had very little room now, and quite a few of the men were looking at them. It had become uncomfortable, and it was impossible to avoid overhearing the men's chatter.

"Pa.s.s," he said. The blond fellow and the unshaven soldier were sparring good-naturedly for the kitty. They knew they were both bluffing, but they both laughed, the point was to see who could bluff best.

"Practically speaking," said a North German voice behind him, "practically speaking we've already won the war!"

"Hm," came another voice.

"As if the Fuhrer could lose a war!" said a third voice. "It's crazy to say such a thing anyway: winning a war! Anyone who talks about winning a war must already be considering the possibility of losing one. Once we start a war, that war is won."

"The Crimea's already cut off," said a fourth voice. "The Russians have closed it off at Perekop."

"That's where I'm being sent," said a faint voice, "to the Crimea...."

"Only by plane, though," came the confident voice of the war-winner. "It's great by plane...."

"The Tommies won't risk it."

The silence of those who said nothing was terrible. It was the silence of those who don't forget, of those who know they are done for.

The blond fellow had shuffled, and the unshaven soldier opened with fifty marks.

Andreas saw he was holding a royal flush.

"And fifty," he said, laughing.

"I'm in," said the unshaven soldier.

"Raise twenty."

"I'm in."

Needless to say, the unshaven soldier lost.

"Two hundred and forty marks," said a voice behind them, accompanied, as the sound of the voice indicated, by a shake of the head. It had been quiet for a minute while they had been battling for the kitty. Then the chatter started up again.

"Have a drink," said the unshaven soldier.

"This door business is crazy, I tell you!"

"What door?"

"They've barricaded the door, those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, those scabs!"

"Shut up!"

A station without a resounding voice. G.o.d bless stations without resounding voices. The buzzing chatter of the other men went on, they had forgotten about the door and the two hundred and forty marks, and Andreas gradually began to realize he was a bit drunk.

"Shouldn't we have a break?" he said. "I'd like a bite to eat."

"No!" shouted the unshaven soldier, "not on your life, we'll carry on till we get to Przemysl! No"-his voice was filled with a terrible fear. The blond fellow yawned and began muttering. "No," shouted the unshaven soldier....

They went on playing.

"The 42 MG is all we need to win the war. The others have nothing like it...."

"The Fuhrer knows what he's doing!" But the silence of those who said nothing, nothing at all, was terrible. It was the silence of those who knew they were all done for.

At times the train got so full they could hardly hold their cards. All three were drunk by now, but very clear in the head. Then the train would empty again, there were loud voices, resounding and unresounding. Railway stations. The day wore on to afternoon. From time to time they would pause for a snack, then go on playing, go on drinking. The schnapps was excellent.

"Well, it's French, after all," said the soldier who needed a shave. He seemed to need one more than ever now. His face was pallid under the black stubble. His eyes were red, he hardly ever won, but he appeared to have a vast supply of money. Now the blond fellow was winning often. They were playing chemin-de-fer, the train being empty again, then they played rummy, and suddenly the cards fell from the unshaven soldier's hand, he slumped forward and began to snore horribly. The blond fellow straightened him, gently arranging him so that he could sleep propped up. They put something over his feet, and Andreas returned his winnings to the man's pocket.

How gently and tenderly the blond fellow treats his friend! I'd never have expected it of that slob.

I wonder what Paul's doing now?

They got to their feet and stretched, shook crumbs and dirt from their laps, and cigarette ash, and flung the last empty bottle out of the window.

They were traveling through an empty countryside, left and right glorious gardens, gentle hills, smiling clouds-an autumn afternoon.... Soon, soon I'm going to die. Between Lvov and Cernauti. During the card game he had tried to pray, but he kept having to think about it; he had tried again to form sentences in the future and realized they had no force. He had tried again to grasp it in terms of time-it was make-believe, idle make-believe! But he had only to think of the word Przemysl to know he was on the right track. Lvov! His heart missed a beat. Cernauti! Nothing...it must be somewhere in between...he couldn't visualize it, he had no mental picture of the map. "D'you have a map?" he asked the blond fellow, who was looking out of the window.

"No," he said amiably, "but he does!" He pointed to the soldier who needed a shave. "He has a map. How restless he is. He's got something on his mind. That's a fellow with something terrible on his mind, I tell you...."

Andreas said nothing and looked over the man's shoulder through the window. "Radebeul!" said a resounding Saxon voice. A decent voice, a good voice, a German voice, a voice that might just as well be saying: The next ten thousand into the slaughterhouse, please....

It was wonderful outside, still almost like summer, September weather. Soon I'm going to die, I'll never see that tree again, that russet tree over there by the green house. I'll never see that girl wheeling her bike again, the girl in the yellow dress with the black hair. These things the train's racing past, I'll never see any of them again....

The blond fellow was asleep now too, he had sat down on the floor beside his pal, and in sleep they had sunk against one another; the snores of one were harsh and loud, of the other soft and whistling. The corridor was deserted except for now and again someone going to the john, and occasionally someone would say: "There's room inside, you know, mate." But it was much nicer in the corridor, in the corridor you were more alone, and now that both the others were asleep he was quite alone, and it had been a terrific idea to secure the door with wire.

Everything the train's leaving behind I'm leaving behind too, once and for all, he thought. I'll never see any more of this again, never again this segment of sky full of soft gray-blue clouds, never again this little fly, a very young one, perched on the window frame and flying off now, off to somewhere in Radebeul; that little fly will stay in Radebeul, I guess...stay behind under this segment of sky, that little fly will never keep me company between Lvov and Cernauti. The fly is on its way to Radebeul, maybe it's flying into some kitchen heavy with the odor of potatoes boiled in their jackets and the acrid smell of cheap vinegar, where they're making potato salad for some soldier who's now free to suffer for three weeks through the alleged joys of home leave...that's all I'll ever see, he thought, for at that moment the train swung in a great loop and was coming into Dresden.

At Dresden the platform was very full, and at Dresden many men got out. The window faced a whole cl.u.s.ter of soldiers headed by a stout, red-faced young lieutenant. The soldiers were all dressed up in brand-new uniforms, the lieutenant was also in his brand-new hand-me-downs for the doomed; even the decorations on his chest were as new as freshly cast lead soldiers, they looked like complete fakes. The lieutenant grasped the door handle and rattled it.

"Open up there!" he shouted at Andreas.