The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque Read Free Book Online

heroics of a few."
    Heel shrugs his shoulders. "Price—purpose—pay—those are your words. We shall see how far they will bring you!"
    Weil glances at the private's uniform that Heel is still wearing. "And how far have yours brought you?"
    Heel turns crimson. "To a memory," he says harshly. "To a remembrance of things which at any rate are not to be had for money."
    Weil is silent a moment. "To a memory," he repeats, then turns and looks out over the empty square, and along our scanty ranks—"Yes,—and to a terrible responsibility." As for us, we do not make much of all this. We are freezing, and we consider it unnecessary to talk. Talking will not make the world any different.
    The ranks break. The farewells begin. Müller, the man next to me, settles the pack on his shoulders, clamps his bundle of rations under his arm; then he stretches his hand to me: "Well, good luck, Ernst—"
    "Good luck, Felix " He passes on to Willy, to Albert, to Kosole.
    Now comes Gerhard Pohl, the company singer who on the march used to sing all the top tenor notes, pursuing the melody as occasion offered, up into the clouds. The remainder of the time he would rest on his oars, so as to be able to put his full weight into the two-part passages. His tanned face with the wart has a troubled look: he has just parted from Karl Bröger with whom he has played so many games of skat. That has been hard for him.
    "Good-bye, Ernst—"
    "Good-bye, Gerhard." He is gone.
    Weddekamp gives me his hand. He used to make the crosses for the fellows who were killed. "It's a pity, Ernst," says he, "I suppose I'll never be able to fit you up now. And you might have had a mahogany one, too! I was saving a lovely bit of piano-lid for you."
    "Given time all things must happen," I reply, grinning. "I'll drop you a line when it comes to that."
    He laughs. "That's right, keep smiling, lad; the war's not over yet."
    Then with drooping shoulders he trots away.
    The first group has already vanished through the barracks gate, Scheffler, Fassbender, young Lucke, and August Beckman among them. Others follow. We begin to be troubled. It is difficult at first to get used to the idea of so many fellows going away for good. Heretofore it was only death, or wounds, or temporary transfers that depleted the company. Now peace must be reckoned with.
    We are so accustomed to shell-holes and trenches that we are suddenly suspicious of this still, green landscape; as though its stillness were but a pretence to lure us into some secretly undermined region.
    And now there go our comrades, hastening out into it, heedless, alone, without rifles, without bombs! One would like to run after them, fetch them back, shout to them: "Hey! where are you off to? What are you after out there alone? You belong here with us. We must stick together. How else can we live?"
    Queer mill-wheel in the brain: too long a soldier.
    The November wind pipes over the empty barracks square. Yet more and more comrades go. Not long now and every man will be alone.
    The rest of our company all go home by the same route. We are now lounging in the station, waiting for a train. The place is a regular army dump of chests, cardboard boxes, packs and waterproof-sheets.
    Only two trains pass through in seven hours. Men hang round the doorways in clusters, in swarms. By the afternoon we have won a place near the track, and before evening are in the best position, right at the front.
    The first train arrives soon after midday—a freight train with blind horses. Their skewed eyeballs are blue-white and red-rimmed. They stand stock still, their heads outstretched, and there is life only in the quivering sense of their nostrils.
    During the afternoon it is announced that no more trains will leave today.
    Not a soul moves. A soldier does not believe in announcements. And in point of fact another train does come. One glance suffices. This will do. Half-full at the most.
    The station hall reverberates to the assembling of gear