All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Read Free Book Online Page A

and the others spool off the barbed wire. It is that awful stuff with close-set, long spikes. I am not used to unrolling it and tear my hand.
    After a few hours it is done. But there is still some time before the lorries come. Most of us lie down and sleep. I try also, but it has turned too chilly. We know we are not far from the sea because we are constantly waked by the cold.
    Once I fall fast asleep. Then wakening suddenly with a start I do not know where I am. I see the stars, I see the rockets, and for a moment have the impression that I have fallen asleep at a garden fête. I don’t know whether it is morning or evening, I lie in the pale cradle of the twilight, and listen for soft words which will come, soft and near—am I crying? I put my handto my eyes, it is so fantastic, am I a child? Smooth skin;—it lasts only a second, then I recognize the silhouette of Katczinsky. The old veteran, he sits quietly and smokes his pipe—a covered pipe of course. When he sees I am awake, he says: “That gave you a fright. It was only a nose-cap, it landed in the bushes over there.”
    I sit up, I feel myself strangely alone. It’s good Kat is there. He gazes thoughtfully at the front and says:
    “Mighty fine fire-works if they weren’t so dangerous.”
    One lands behind us. Some recruits jump up terrified. A couple of minutes later another comes over, nearer this time. Kat knocks out his pipe. “We’re in for it.”
    Then it begins in earnest. We crawl away as well as we can in our haste. The next lands fair amongst us. Two fellows cry out. Green rockets shoot up on the sky-line. Barrage. The mud flies high, fragments whizz past. The crack of the guns is heard long after the roar of the explosions.
    Besides us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to my breast. The little shoulders heave. Shoulders just like Kemmerich’s. I let him be. So that the helmet should be of some use I stick it on his behind;—not for a jest, but out of consideration, since that is his highest part. And though there is plenty of meat there, a shot in it can be damned painful. Besides, a man has to lie for months on his belly in the hospital, and afterwards he would be almost sure to have a limp.
    It’s got someone pretty badly. Cries are heard between the explosions.
    At last it grows quiet. The fire has lifted over us and is nowdropping on the reserves. We risk a look. Red rockets shoot up to the sky. Apparently there’s an attack coming.
    Where we are it is still quiet. I sit up and shake the recruit by the shoulder. “All over, kid! It’s all right this time.”
    He looks round him dazedly. “You’ll get used to it soon,” I tell him.
    He sees his helmet and puts it on. Gradually he comes to. Then suddenly he turns fiery red and looks confused. Cautiously he reaches his hand to his behind and looks at me dismally.
    I understand at once: Gun-shy. That wasn’t the reason I had stuck his helmet over it. “That’s no disgrace,” I reassure him: “Many’s the man before you has had his pants full after the first bombardment. Go behind that bush there and throw your underpants away. Get along——”
    He goes off. Things become quieter, but the cries do not cease. “What’s up, Albert?” I ask.
    “A couple of columns over there got it in the neck.”
    The cries continued. It is not men, they could not cry so terribly.
    “Wounded horses,” says Kat.
    It’s unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning.
    We are pale. Detering stands up. “God! For God’s sake! Shoot them.”
    He is a farmer and very fond of horses. It gets under his skin. Then as if deliberately the fire dies down again. The screaming of the beasts becomes louder. One can no