Outside Verdun

^{CHAPTER ONE} A turning point

THE GERMANS WERE using all the smaller and larger settlements in the Meuse area as bases and had made themselves at home there. Of course, they admired the men at the front and the way they endured privations under fire in the mud, but they didn’t let that dent their self-esteem. The further behind the lines you went, the more obviously the war metamorphosed into a system of administration and supply. A bunch of bureaucrats in uniform held absolute sway here. They didn’t like to hear talk of later restitution. They requisitioned what they needed and paid with stamped paper, which France was supposed to redeem later. To them cleanliness, staunch service and the military for its own sake were the highest virtues. That they lived in primitive rustic stone cottages, without comforts such as warm water, tiled baths and leather armchairs, was to them a sacrifice for which the people and the Fatherland would one day have to compensate them; such was their war.

Damvillers, a modest village on the provincial railway line called Le Meusien, was one of hundreds with no influence on the fate of the wider area. That hobnailed German soldiers and distinguished officers in shiny boots now scraped across the paving stones and floorboards instead of farmers in blue jackets and clogs hadn’t changed that one iota. Some were quartered permanently in Damvillers, some temporarily, while others went there for the day to relieve the tedium or get provisions for their units. Major Jansch was in the former category, Captain Niggl in the latter.

The tedium— the German state relied on officers: active soldiers and yeomen from the Landwehr, and behind the lines men from the military Reserve and reservists from the Landsturm, important gentlemen with dirks on their belts and helmets on their heads. The shiny spike on their helmets pretty much embodied the pinnacle of human existence for them. Neither Niggl, a retired civil servant from Weilheim, nor Psalter, a head teacher from Neuruppin, nor Jansch, Berlin-Steglitz, an editor, could imagine a higher peak, although Jansch was in a special position because he had played soldiers in civilian life too as editor of Army and Fleet Weekly. In peacetime, they’d drawn a monthly income of about 300 Marks. Now, for as long as the war lasted, the paymaster handed them three times that on the first of each month, besides which eating, drinking and smoking cost very little, and accommodation and letters home nothing at all. A man could certainly manage on that. And this was how it was for hundreds of gentlemen in Crépion, Vavrille, Romagne, Chaumont, in Jamez and Vitarville; everywhere that was occupied. As far as they were concerned, the war couldn’t last long enough, even if they were often bored or required to do tedious, detailed work.

Where the lines of communication began with the field police sentries at the crossroads, a desolation descended on the men born of daily duty unrelieved by intellectual life or women and children, a struggle for existence with no science or art, gramophone music, cinema or theatre, and with almost no politics. The lines of communication were as indispensable to the front lines as a mother’s bloodstream to her unborn child, feeding them, helping them to grow and continually supplying their every need. ‘Supplies’ was the magic word in the communications zone. Everything – from hay bales for the horses to ammunition, leave trains and bread rations – rested on its absolute reliability. Without it, the men at the front wouldn’t have lasted a week. And so the staff in the communications zone bathed in the sunshine of their immeasurable importance. It radiated from every orderly and staff sergeant, but most especially from the officers. They did their duty, ate reasonably well, drank good local wine, conspired against each other and performed small reciprocal favours.

And so it was that Major Jansch, commander of the X/20 ASC battalion, came to clink his spurs on Lieutenant Psalter’s steps. A major visiting a lieutenant. And not just any major, the Great Jansch. And not just any lieutenant – flat-nosed Lieutenant Psalter from the transport depot, with his close-cropped black hair, scarred face and myopic eyes. Was it the end of the world? Not at all. A lieutenant in the transport corps has access to vehicles. Ordinarily, an off-duty ASC major would take nothing to do with him, but if that major needed a favour, he had to ask nicely. The railway transport officer at Damvillers belonged to the Moirey park officers’ drinking club, which was not on good terms with Major Jansch. The commander was in a position to question the whys and wherefores of every case of wine that Major Jansch sent home – if indeed it contained wine. This could potentially open up a great pit into which the major might quietly disappear. (The officers had agreed with Herr Graßnick to shelve the unpleasant water tap incident simply in order to get one over on Major Jansch.) Major Jansch’s goods therefore had to leave from other railway stations. And so even a newborn child could understand why Major Jansch was now affably pulling up a chair at his comrade Psalter’s desk for a chat, or, as Herr Jansch put it, a chinwag.

Herr Jansch was a gaunt man of about 50 with a long, thin moustache, who in profile looked rather like a raven. On the other armchair in Lieutenant Psalter’s rustic room sat a chubby-cheeked man with sly, watery eyes and a little beard that made him look quite friendly: Captain Niggl from the Bavarian labour company stationed on the other side of the Romagne ridge. He had come to Lieutenant Psalter with a concern of his own. As he was only passing through Damvillers, he wanted to make the most of his time and had asked to be dealt with quickly. His problem was one of the utmost importance to any soldier. It concerned beer, four barrels of Münchner Hornschuh-Bräu, which had been delivered into Captain Niggl’s hands for his four companies by way of his brother-in-law, although they were actually meant for the infantry of the two Bavarian divisions at the front. However, the high-ups had eventually realised that the ASC men must have their turn too, and the four barrels had been lying at Dun train station since the previous day. If the infantry got wind of it, it would be farewell, amber nectar. A barrel of beer was worth a little thievery. Captain Niggl indicated that if Lieutenant Psalter’s trusty lorry drivers successfully delivered the precious goods to battalion headquarters, there would be a drinking party and all the gentlemen from Damvillers would be most welcome. The beer could be watered down a tad for the ASC men. No harm in that.

Major Jansch eavesdropped on the Bavarian’s love of the bottle with disgust. He had no taste for beer – nasty, bitter stuff – or for the sour red wine that the French conned fools into buying with names such as Bordeaux and Burgundy. He loved sweet things, a taste of port or vermouth, and even then in moderation, for his passion lay in other areas. But he hid his aversion, even going as far as to the invite the Bavarian for a breakfast tipple should his business in Damvillers be finished by 11. Herr Niggl said he had just one more tiny thing to attend to at brigade HQ. He wanted to have some files delivered to Judge Advocate Mertens at Montmédy Court Martial, and none of his own men could be freed up to do it. But Damvillers regularly sent orderlies up the line – he’d find someone to take them. In the meantime, Lieutenant Psalter had combined Jansch’s and Niggl’s business and sorted them both out by phone. One of his lorries was taking a sapper commando across the sector to Vilosnes at midday, as the bridge over the Meuse at Sivry needed strengthened. The driver could easily pick up Major Jansch’s case beforehand, take it to Dun, and collect Captain Niggl’s barrels there. The three officers went their separate ways more than happy.

At quarter past 11, Major Jansch entered the mess. Soon after Herr Niggl also wheezed in. The large room was completely empty; the communications zone commanders and Fifth Army generals had once again been pushing for official hours to be observed. There was in any case plenty to do, as the battle at the Somme called for more artillery, troops and transport on a daily basis. They were bombarded with demands from the Fourth Army, which was under fire. The Verdun sector was no longer unique. The blasted French weren’t leaving all the work to the British and had even made more progress than them. It really would be a disaster if they got as far as Péronne. For the paradoxical game of war was about tracts of land as well as barrels of beer. It was a non-stop round of victories and defeats, just like Major Jansch’s egg boxes, which he maintained held red wine that he’d paid for.

It was pleasantly quiet and cool in the stone house, where the first floor was reserved for officers. Major Jansch was served quickly. He was both a feared guest and a laughing stock on account of his meanness. That day he had a new victim to listen to his speeches – a Bavarian. They were busily drinking port, and the Bavarian was smoking a long cigar called ‘Victor of Longwy’ that cost 30 Pfennigs and was sold to the officers for 14. Major Jansch wasn’t smoking.

The two men in grey Litevkas soon came to an understanding, a certain reserve on both sides notwithstanding. In his companion Niggl, Major Jansch saw someone whose political views he’d like to investigate. The war’s second anniversary had been celebrated a few weeks previously, but the war couldn’t end until the Germans were victorious across the board and could dictate the peace. Regrettably, a lot of people at home didn’t understand that, said Jansch. They dreamt of a rapprochement, because that Red Indian hypocrite Wilson over in America had soft-soaped them. Yes, Niggl agreed, there were people like that in Munich too, but not many. Social democrats and pacifists. Long-haired types from the borough of Schwabing. Idiots. Carnival doughnuts. Right-thinking people just laughed at them.

Major Jansch frowned and took a swig of port. He had to disagree. People like that should be put in protective custody, and the sooner the better. Captain Niggl was prepared to accept this too. Very good. Protective custody, then. Or perhaps they should be drafted into a labour battalion. How about that, Major Jansch? And he blinked at his companion with his clever little eyes.

Major Jansch demonstrated his disagreement by saying nothing. Before his discharge, he had for many years been an upright Prussian garrison captain. Now he commanded 2,000 capable, hard-working men and had four averagely competent acting lieutenants as company commanders. He didn’t want to hear of men in protective custody being put in the army. Even the very best commander wouldn’t get an Iron Cross, first class out of their achievements. Unfortunately he didn’t have that honour and the way things were going it didn’t look like he’d ever get it. He was surrounded by too much envy and malice. But, then, didn’t every officer sing the same tune?

Niggl agreed that they did but without much conviction. Deep down, he felt very pleased with himself. Things hadn’t gone so well for him in ages. He’d settled a difficult matter, unpleasant for everyone concerned, and thereby confirmed his position as the father of the battalion with those involved. Unfortunately, his Third Company had suffered another lost in the preceding weeks, he told Jansch. A sergeant had died a hero’s death, and it had been Niggl’s painful duty to inform his relatives. Regrettably, the man had been entangled in some court martial proceedings in the past few months, but Niggl had been able to stall the investigation until the man was eventually killed. Coincidence, of course. Yes, the battalion had some dangerous advance positions. And a man who dirtied his own nest had to be kept away from the company. A man like that begrudged his comrades their bit of meat, rum and sugar. But the Frogs had done for Sergeant Kroysing in the end.

Major Jansch listened carefully as the Bavarian, who wasn’t used to port, chattered on. Discipline had to be maintained. Subordination was of the utmost importance. A sergeant who denigrated his comrades could ruin the troops’ morale. In any case, nothing was as dangerous in the army as the creeping discontent created by politicians’ speeches and insolent enquiries. Those fellows were always criticising the German army; they didn’t like the rations, or the leave arrangements, or the way complaints were handled. How was a commanding officer supposed to keep his troops under control, when they knew civilians could raise objections at any time? Yes, only the Pan-German Union knew how much the Reich owed its army, said Major Jansch, asking Niggl if he knew of this organisation.

Och, said Niggl dismissively, he had no time for unions and associations. His men in the Third went about their business quietly enough. News had got round quickly as to who it was who had met a hero’s death at the hands of the Frogs. And the man had scarcely been in that position two months. It hadn’t been possible to relieve him. During the battle of Verdun, things couldn’t always be done by the book, and there weren’t many volunteers to take his place. And as he wanted a commission and was going off on a course in the autumn, he had to get used life at the front, didn’t he? Yes, a brother of his had come forward, a sapper lieutenant. He wanted his brother’s effects, but he couldn’t have them because they’d already been sent to the parents in Nuremberg – sometimes the Third Company was a little too diligent in performing its duties. The field post handled three million items a day, for goodness’ sake – sometimes things went round the long way or got lost. So everything was resolved peacefully, and Judge Advocate Mertens could now put the files away.

Major Jansch sat there fingering his long moustache, watching the Bavarian in astonishment. This chap knew how to handle things, even if you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. It was very clear that in an emergency the demands of duty required solutions that would never have occurred to an old veteran like himself. It was a lesson to Jansch. He’d always been too high-minded but he wasn’t too proud to learn from a Bavarian beer drinker. He thanked his companion for a fascinating half hour in his genial company, for Niggl was wiping his mouth and getting ready to go. He had an appointment at quarter to 12 with the divisional chaplain, Father Lochner, who had offered him a lift. Naturally, he wouldn’t have the same kind of conversation with the reverent gentleman, for earthly beings should not manipulate God’s ways or use them for their own ends. And so the gentlemen said their goodbyes. The Bavarian trudged out, while the Prussian remained seated for a while. With a heavy heart, for he was very careful with money, he asked that the four glasses of port and the cigar – 114 Pfennigs – be charged to his account, consoling himself that what he had learnt from the Bavarian that day was worth 114 Pfennigs. Deep in thought, with his hands behind his back, he crept down the stairs and out into the glaring sunlight.

^{CHAPTER TWO} Oderint dum metuant

JUDGE ADVOCATE CARL Georg Mertens was the son of a famous German lawyer, a man whose Commentary on Civilian Law had provided clarifications of the utmost importance and formulations that were now standard. The book was known simply as Mertens, and its author had been received several times by the Kaiser. The son grew up in the shadow of his father’s distinctions. He was an outstanding scholar and became professor of legal history fairly young. His passion was more for cultural history than for the law, but only an idiot would have spurned the advantages that the name Mertens brought in the German legal world. In the beginning, he had believed in the war and gone into the field with enthusiasm. Disillusionment ensued. He reconnected with his peaceful tendencies and accepted a transfer to a court martial, albeit somewhat hesitantly. He loved books and suffered greatly from the lack of good music. He appointed a Jewish lawyer with a gift for the piano as his assistant so he could play duets with him. When he discovered the small town of Montmédy’s museum with its pastels and paintings by the Lorraine painter Bastien-Lepage he felt compensated for a great deal. He read a lot, improving his French through the novels of Stendhal. His days in Montmédy passed in a leisurely way. Into this quiet scholarly life, little touched by the scant legal duties in Montmédy, walked Sapper Lieutenant Eberhard Kroysing and he turned it upside down.

He appeared one morning shortly before 9am in his threadbare uniform, Iron Cross, first class and steel helmet, carrying incongruous new maroon leather gloves, and demanded to speak to the judge advocate himself. Because of the ambivalent attitude all those behind the lines have towards soldiers from the front, the clerks looked rather shamefaced as they said they were sorry but the judge advocate didn’t start work until just before 10am and his deputy, Sergeant Porisch, had not yet returned from interrogating a French prisoner.

Kroysing laughed. ‘Nice life you have here by the sounds of it. Mind the Frogs don’t get you in the neck sometime – the ones who aren’t in prison, I mean.’

He hid his anger. If you wanted to get your way in the jungle behind the lines, you had to accept the habits and customs of the drones who worked there. And Eberhard Kroysing intended to get his way. He wanted to see his brother’s file. At the same time, he was filled with deep mistrust towards each and every being in the area. They were all birds of a feather who flocked together unless someone forced them apart. These legal eagles would undoubtedly have more sympathy for the guilty parties in Christoph’s company, the acting lieutenants and sergeant majors, than for Eberhard Kroysing, who had come to disturb their peaceful idyll.

The clerk, Corporal Sieck, who had taken a bullet in the chest and got the Iron Cross at Longwy at the end of August 1914, felt sorry for the tall, scrawny man. Sieck assured him that Judge Advocate Mertens would be there at 10am on the dot and asked if he’d like to have a look at the museum or the citadel in the meantime. Kroysing gave the rather talkative, bespectacled clerk a scornful look. ‘Till 10am, then. Put a note on the judge advocate’s desk: Lieutenant Kroysing asking for information. Hopefully your filing cabinet is in order.’

He saluted and left. It was a long time since he’d spent an hour wandering the streets of a town. He constantly wanted to shake his head. Nothing here was shot up. It was a peaceful provincial town: small shops, small cafés. The civilian life led by respectable citizens carried on, then. Kroysing went into the shops and spent money: handkerchiefs, chocolate, cigarettes, writing paper. The people who served him were reserved and taciturn. Let them hate us as long as they fear us, he thought in Latin, as at last he did climb the steep slope to the citadel to take another look at the undamaged countryside shimmering in the summer light. He marvelled at the Latin language, which could express this in three words where other languages needed many more.

Kroysing leant against the broad parapet and contemplated the hedge-lined meadows below, the streets, the railway line to Luxembourg and the local line he’d come up on that morning from Azannes. A sudden wild anger gripped him at the false peace in this fat, stinking world. God knew he wasn’t the sort of man who begrudged others their pleasures just because things were less pleasant for him. But when he thought how he’d crawled out of Douaumont at 4am and then crossed an insane landscape of leprous craters only to spend an hour admiring the view like a lovesick schoolboy, he felt like peppering the place with grenades.

From a small door in the citadel’s large keep a sergeant emerged with a folder under his arm and his cap perched casually on his cropped head. A local would have recognised him by the cigar at the corner of his mouth as the lawyer Porisch, traipsing back down to the town in his soldier’s garb after interrogating a prisoner. When he saw the officer, Porisch took the cigar from his mouth, clasped the folder close and saluted with a sullen lift of his head. His round, bulging eyes sought the lieutenant’s. Kroysing waved him aside contemptuously; he almost felt like snarling at him and sending him back.

In the meantime, Corporal Sieck had taken pity on the man from the front and sent an orderly to the judge advocate’s quarters with the note, although Kroysing had only asked for it be put on his desk. Judge Advocate Mertens often didn’t turn up at his unlovely office until 11am. There was no telephone connection to his quarters. He didn’t want to be bothered when he was off duty. He’d discovered French painting and with the help of the musical Herr Porisch and various books of reproductions and art histories was feeling his way from Bastien-Lepage back to Corot and forward to Manet and the impressionists. The name Kroysing meant nothing to him. ‘Came from the front. Hasn’t much time,’ the note also said. C.G. Mertens was a polite man who didn’t like to keep people waiting. He hoped Porisch would be able to bring him up to speed quickly. As he ate his breakfast, it dawned on him that the Kroysing files related to a sergeant. So it’s a company commander wanting a nice day out in Montmédy, he thought. It often took Professor Mertens a while to marshal his thoughts.

One minute after 10am, Eberhard Kroysing loped up the old-fashioned stairs two to three at a time. He’d expected a fat, comfort-loving military official and was initially thrown by the sensitive scholar in gold-rimmed spectacles with a head reminicent of Field Marshal Moltke’s. Instead of marching into the room and aggressively confronting this bastard from behind the lines, he suddenly felt he had to be polite. It was clear from the quiet gaze in the man’s blue eyes that no ill-will towards his brother or anyone else had emanated from this office. Eberhard Kroysing could be very charming, as plenty of girls could testify. He formulated his request in gentle words. With his head to one side, C.G. Mertens listened to the sapper lieutenant’s deep voice, which seemed to resonate in his chest.

So this wasn’t a company commander exploiting a pretext but a brother of Sergeant Kroysing against whom charges had been brought several months previously. Judge Advocate Mertens knew nothing more specific as the case had not got past the preliminary investigation stage. Mertens was from north Germany and separated ‘s’ from ‘t’ when he spoke in the typical Plattdeutsch manner, which struck Kroysing, who was from Franken in the south, as rather spinsterish.

‘The state of affairs is being managed by my assistant, Herr Porisch, a former student of my father’s as I’ve discovered. I tell you this, lieutenant, because Herr Porisch wears the uniform of a sergeant and any confusion would be most embarrassing.’

You clown, thought Eberhard Kroysing. Who’s your father and what’s it got to do with me? Be better if you looked after your files. Aloud he said, ‘We were all something else before, Judge Advocate. I, for example, was a mechanical engineer at the Technical University in Berlin Charlottenburg, or “Schlorndorf” as we students called it. But now we have new skins and want to do the best we can.’

Herr Mertens didn’t answer. He rang a bell and said, ‘Please tell Herr Porisch to join this meeting’ to the orderly standing to attention in the door.

Well, well, thought Eberhard Kroysing, as Porisch entered the room, round eyes protruding from his round face, a cigar in his left hand, his right playing an imaginary piano. It’s a good thing I didn’t flatten him. ‘We’ve already met,’ he said, as they were introduced.

‘Fate did indeed provide a preview,’ Porisch agreed.

‘Sometimes a preview doesn’t lead anywhere,’ said Kroysing, ‘but I’d now like some information about my brother’s case.’

Franz Porisch showed what a good memory he had. The dossier against Christoph Kroysing, sergeant in the military Reserve, had been referred to his unit, a Bavarian labour battalion stationed near Mangiennes, several months previously, at the end of April. However, as the investigation of the accused and the accusations made couldn’t possibly have taken so long, the battalion had twice been asked to return the files. Both times the battalion had replied that it couldn’t comment on the whereabouts of the files as the Third Company had in due course passed them on to Kroysing’s replacement unit at Ingolstadt.

‘To his replacement unit in Ingolstadt?’ repeated Eberhard Kroysing stiffly. He sat squarely on his chair with his hands on his thighs. He looks like Ramses with his hooked nose, thin lips and those eyes that are about to scorch my little Porisch, thought Professor Mertens, who was starting to find his tall guest rather captivating.

‘Relato refero,’ replied Porisch. ‘I’m just repeating what we were told. About 10 days ago, the file came back to us through official channels along with other reports. It was marked “Accused killed in action” with the date and the company’s official seal. Shortly thereafter the battalion called us to confirm the news and ask whether we intended to close the file. Naturally, we said yes, as a closed file is the sort of file everyone likes.’ It then occurred to him that the man sat there was the brother of the accused, who had been killed in action and was therefore dead. Dropping his cigar in the ashtray in shock, he jumped up, bowed and stammered: ‘My condolences, by the way. My sincere condolences.’

The judge advocate rose and reached his hand across the desk to express his condolences too. Eberhard Kroysing looked from one man to the other. He’d have liked to smash both their faces in, as he put it to himself. These men had effectively aided and abetted a murder with their sloppiness. Then he pulled himself together, half rose from his chair, accepted Mertens’ limp, scholarly hand and asked without further explanation if he could see the file. Sergeant Porisch jumped out of the door, ready to be of service. And as Mertens watched Kroysing in silence so as not to upset his feelings, Kroysing froze and thought: Christel wasn’t imagining things, and the ASC man at the funeral wasn’t lying. They murdered Christel; they let the Frogs sort it out for them. To Ingolstadt! That beautiful town full of bridges. While Christel was sitting in Chambrettes-Ferme waiting to be relieved, for a hearing. Cut off from God and the world. And I, bastard that I am, left him to deal with it all alone. A dozen villains conspiring against little Christel.

Then he had in his hand the thinnest file that could ever have made it to a court martial: a couple of pages, beginning with a report from Field Censor’s Office V and Christel’s letter to Uncle Franz, written in his brother’s fine, familiar hand, a couple of pages from a company report (exonerating the NCO corps), a statement from the replacement unit in Ingolstadt to the effect that Chr. Kroysing (currently in the field) had last been brought there in February and been assigned to Niggl’s ASC battalion at the beginning of March. There was a long pause and then a note from mid-July from the field hospital at Billy: ‘Brought in seriously injured’. And the next day: ‘Buried Billy with two other NCOs, cross no. D 3321’.

It was very quiet in the room. Its pale grey sterility was enlivened only by a bookcase, an old engraving on one wall of Napoleon III, glazed and in a gilt frame, and a picture on the desk of the famous Professor Mertens, whom Eberhard Kroysing didn’t know. From outside came the sound of fifes and drums, a company from the Montmédy recruitment depot marching on the practice ground. His heart thumping, Kroysing read his brother’s letter, the clear, angry sentences, full of complaints about the injustice of the world; he couldn’t sleep because of the wrongs visited on his men. I mustn’t get upset, thought Kroysing. Good that these strangers are watching, that I have to control myself. Would’ve made a good company commander, Christel, and a useful citizen later. And, closing the folder, he asked the gentlemen if anything in it had struck them as odd.

Mertens leafed through the folder, then passed it to Porisch. Neither found anything unusual. It often took a long time to ascertain the whereabouts of a man who had been shifted about ‘up front’. That was exactly why the courts were so slow. ‘Exactly,’ said the sapper lieutenant, his face very alert and his voice excessively polite. ‘And you couldn’t know about the slight catch in this whole thing: that my brother was killed at Chambrettes-Ferme less than one mile away from his company, and that it was the company itself that stuck him there at the beginning of May with no relief until the day he was so fortunately killed.’

The two lawyers looked at him in surprise. Then it would be hard to understand, noted the judge advocate softly, why the file was sent to Ingolstadt. Porisch was a quicker thinker. ‘Time is always of the essence,’ he said in his hearty voice. ‘Stick in with the orderly room chaps.’

Lieutenant Kroysing waved his long hand. ‘Bravo. And then along came death – as Wilhelm Busch says.’ The three men all knew the spare poetry and drawings of the eccentric humorist Wilhelm Busch, which depicted life’s cruelties with equanimity.

Judge Advocate Mertens would have preferred to concentrate on the French painter Corot, whose poetically transfigured landscapes greatly appealed to him. But something untoward had happened here in his sector with his help – an irregularity with apparently fatal consequences. His pale face flushed and he requested both gentlemen’s attention: had he understood everything correctly? He repeated the facts just established. ‘If that is the case,’ he added quietly, ‘we cannot consider the matter to be closed. We shall have to pursue our enquiries.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Porisch, ‘but if that is so, then a new offence has been committed, which requires a new file. We must bring charges for the deliberate killing of Sergeant Kroysing by— yes, by whom?’

All three were silent, suddenly realising how murky the incident was. Who would be charged? Was there evidence against anyone? What had actually happened? At what point had a criminal intention come into play? The exigences of service meant Sergeant Kroysing had to stick it out at Chambrettes-Ferme, just as Lieutenant Kroysing was sticking it out at Douaumont and tens of thousands of German soldiers were sticking it out in the trenches at the front. The war was a tireless consumer of men, each of whom was bound to his place by orders. Who could prove that the order that fettered young Kroysing had the murderous ulterior motive of extinguishing his ‘case’? A misdemeanour on the part of the Third Company could be proved. But they could probably talk themselves out of it by saying that an inexperienced clerk had sent the files to Ingolstadt in good faith, where they had been expecting Sergeant Kroysing to turn up at any moment on a transport, as he was clearly absent from his company. The three men went over it all, talking back and forth. Sergeant Porisch’s head was cleared of Brahms’ sonatas, and Professor Carl Mertens forgot about Corot. Their attention was taken by the emerging fuzzy outlines of a wrong, possibly a crime. The guilty parties were well protected, covered by the demands of duty. How could they get to them? Well, they had to and they would. In any case, Lieutenant Kroysing now saw that he could count on these two men and the legal machinery behind them. He suddenly felt very strong.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, looking gratefully from one to the other with a warm glow, a release almost, in his grey eyes, ‘thank you. We’ll rock this baby until it falls out of its cradle. I can already smell the need for a confession. Without a confession from the perpetrators, we cannot rehabilitate my brother. And I want to do that. I owe it to my parents and Uncle Franz, if not to the poor lad himself, who won’t really give a damn, however much it pained him to go to his grave. I still have a last letter from him, which I haven’t yet been able to read for technical reasons. Perhaps that voice from the grave will tell us who our adversaries are. And then I’ll take care of the confession. How, I don’t yet know. There is also a witness still alive. My brother asked an ASC man for help the day before he died. Unfortunately, I’ve so far neglected to find out his name. But I can easily dig it out. It seems my men were working on the railway with those same ASC men. We’re neighbours in a way – everything revolves around the old man of Douaumont, where I live.’

Sergeant Porisch’s eyes widened. ‘Are you stationed at Douaumont, Lieutenant?’ He fell back into official parlance with the shock of it. ‘Can a man survive there?’

‘As you see,’ Eberhard Kroysing replied.

‘Isn’t it under constant attack from the French?’

‘Not always,’ answered Kroysing in his deep voice.

‘But there’s a constant stream of wounded and dead there, isn’t there?’

Kroysing laughed. ‘You get used to it. Nothing’s happened to me yet.’

‘The likes of us can’t imagine what it must be like there.’

‘Not great from your point of view, wonderful from mine. A fabulous stretch of churned up wasteland and old Douaumont right in the middle like the battered carapace of a giant turtle. We sit underneath and crawl out the neck hole to play in the sand. Pretty much. Besides, you probably imagine it’s much more uncomfortable than it actually is. It’ll hold out a bit longer, old Douaumont.’

‘Under high-angle fire,’ said Porisch softly.

‘That too,’ answered Lieutenant Kroysing lightly. ‘You get used to it. But if anything serious happens to me, I’ll appoint a successor or substitute and give you his name and address. This matter certainly shouldn’t suffer because of that. Thank you, gentlemen,’ he repeated, standing up. ‘Now I have a little private war to wage in the midst of this great war. But then all of us continue to pursue our hobbies if there’s time and it doesn’t affect our duties. In the final analysis, I’ve still got to pay the Frogs back for my brother. You might almost say,’ and his long, thin lips curled in a sneer, ‘that I’m ahead of the game on that one: some little exploding mines, you know, a bit of gas, a few canister bombs and finally the blockhouses in Herbesbois that we smoked out with flame throwers. They have a lot of respect for our uniform over there. But thus far I’ve just been doing my professional duty. Now it’s a bit more personal between me and them.’ He pulled on his left glove, put on his helmet, gave the judge advocate then the NCO his bony hand, pulled on his right glove and said: ‘Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while, gentlemen. If I don’t peg it, I’ll definitely be in touch.’ He then wished them a pleasant lunch and left.

The two men left behind looked at each other. ‘He’s quite a man,’ said Porisch, summarising both their thoughts. ‘I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of the man who betrayed his little brother.’

Judge Advocate Mertens gave his soft, blonde, scholarly head a delicate shake. ‘Goodness gracious me,’ he said, frowning, ‘how men abuse each other.’

^{CHAPTER THREE} The demands of duty

LIEUTENANT KROYSING MOVED differently now on the stairs. He no longer jumped but walked, and with each step a plan took shape within him. He needed to proceed in a strictly official way, and that’s what he would do. If the demands of duty had allowed the ASC bigwigs to bring Sergeant Kroysing down, then they would allow Lieutenant Kroysing to force a confession. None of those fellows were men. They looked like men but they were hollow and made of tin. You only had to squeeze them a little and their guts came out. Lieutenant Kroysing looked very much at ease as he slammed the brown oak door shut and almost inaudibly – a sign of great contentment – hummed a tune under his breath.

A lorry carrying two leather-clad drivers braked immediately when a gaunt officer in a steel helmet raised his maroon-gloved hand. The lieutenant was in luck. The lorry was from Lieutenant Psalter’s depot at Damvillers, had delivered express goods for transport to Germany by train and was returning practically empty. Two heavily laden men returning from leave sitting on their crates hardly counted. The only problem was that they couldn’t really offer the lieutenant a seat.

‘Would you care to sit next to me for two minutes, Lieutenant?’ asked the driver, an NCO from Cologne, judging by his accent. ‘We’ve still to pick up some post bags. Then we’ll be able to offer you a nice easy chair, Lieutenant.’

‘Easy chair, that’s a good one,’ laughed Lieutenant Kroysing. ‘Be keeping mothers’ letters warm, will I?’

The driver grinned. He seemed all right to Kroysing. He certainly wasn’t stationed in Montmédy. When the post bags had been loaded, Kroysing said he preferred to stay up front. These lorry drivers went everywhere. They knew all the roads, everywhere of any importance, the approaches to the firing line. They were seasoned men, as they say at sea, and although guarded with officers they were still prepared to chat, express opinions and have a laugh and a joke, all the while keeping their eyes on the light strip of road. Eberhard Kroysing roared with laughter, sometimes grinned to himself, rubbed his hands in glee and ripped his eyes open in astonishment, saying ‘already?’ when the lorry pulled up at the farm where Captain Lauber and the division’s sapper headquarters were installed.

‘A great laugh, Sergeant,’ said Lieutenant Kroysing. ‘And now it’s back to the serious business of life.’

People knew Lieutenant Kroysing here and were impressed by him. The branches of the armed services were small worlds of their own with their own languages and secrets, living side by side in combat units. A sapper lieutenant stood out among infantrymen like a goat in a flock of sheep, but within the structure of his own branch, which started with the broad base of the frontline companies, went through battalion, brigade and division staff, and culminated in the sapper general back at St Martin, he was as much at home and in his proper place as any animal in its herd. Kroysing was hungry. He’d already accepted a sausage and pork fat sandwich from the lorry driver, and he was very happy when Captain Lauber began by inviting him to lunch. Lauber ate with his staff and a few other officers from the area, who had set up a small mess in an empty apartment. They were purely technical troops, radio operators and anti-aircraft specialists, about a dozen men, all deeply preoccupied by their work, well trained and responsible. Captain Lauber, a swarthy man from Württenberg who had served longest of any of them, had established a few house rules. Talking shop at lunchtime was forbidden, as were politics. More than half a bottle of wine was forbidden. Everything else was allowed. Differences in rank didn’t matter, good manners were taken as read, and even staff sergeants were included – even Jewish ones.

Everyone in the services knew that the sappers, artillery men and technical troops in the German army all suffered from neglect. Compared to the cavalry and the infantry they were largely left to their own devices. No princes or noblemen served with them. They always got a raw deal during manoeuvres, and in peacetime their training and upkeep were underfunded. It was only in the first two years of the war that people had started to talk about how valuable sappers were. Who threw bridges over the Meuse under enemy fire? The sappers. Who cut pathways through wire entanglements before an attack armed with nothing but pliers while enemy guns lay in wait? Who pushed the fire trenches forwards and dug out positions in impossible locations, in limestone or in swamps? Who threw hand grenades as big and round as babies’ heads? Who humped the bloody gas canisters around? Who carried still-smoking flame throwers on their backs through enemy fire, risking being burnt alive if a bullet hit them? Always the sappers. Sapper lieutenants such as Kroysing had been involved in innumerable attacks and had survived uninjured only by the grace of God. And what about the telephonists, who mended essential cables again and again under heavy French fire or serviced the listening apparatus in the forward fire trenches where the gunners slaved – until very recently they’d all been the army’s stepchildren. More recently than that in the feudal regiments, where they were still too refined to have backsides.

Lunch passed pleasantly. Many of the men retired for a nap. Others drank their coffee. Captain Lauber invited his guest to a game of chess, as work didn’t begin again until half past two. Eberhard Kroysing was an excellent chess player. The coffee tasted good and so did his cigar. He’d soon begin a game of chess with an unknown adversary and he’d be back in his lair before the Frogs fired over their evening blessing. Life was worth living.

The hot and cloudy August day hung oppressively over the rolling hilltops. Jackets unbuttoned, Captain Lauber and his guest strolled through the long, narrow fruit garden where farmers who’d now been displaced had once grown cider apples. Squat, leafy trees stood in the middle of a grassy patch, groaning under the weight of their green fruits. The captain said the trees fruited like that back home in Göppingen too, except the Swabian apples ripened red, those here yellow. That was the only difference. And for that they were at war with each other.

Eberhard Kroysing was enjoying the company of this intelligent superior officer. He had to curb his stride beside the shorter man but was happy to do so. The captain said it was much better to discuss things in the open under the flitting shadow of the leaves than in the low-ceilinged farm house. No one could deny that, said Kroysing. The captain replied that he must have the initials O.C. for Sapper Officer Commanding after his name to talk like that. An ordinary lieutenant wouldn’t dare. Even a lieutenant can think, said Kroysing. Even as a soldier he’d learnt that – especially as a soldier.

‘Not many did,’ snarled Captain Lauber. His short-cropped hair was greying at the temples and he was going on top. He waved away the persistent flies attacking his bald patch and asked how things were at the front. No beating about the bush. The short, sharp truth between men. He wanted to know that first before Lieutenant Kroysing unpacked his own troubles.

Eberhard Kroysing shrugged his shoulders. His own troubles? He didn’t have any. It was precisely in order to tell the short, sharp truth that he’d come. The infantry needed help. Those poor dogs didn’t have much to laugh about. Their so-called positions in shell holes and rifle pits extended across the valley, usually overlooked from right or left, and were the object of frantic fighting. The French had attacked 30 times, and the Germans had repulsed them 30 times or more, with the sappers always alongside. But they wouldn’t get any further now. August was drawing to a close. They had six to eight weeks left at best. Then a new enemy would attack the men: rain.

They paced up and down, with Kroysing always on the captain’s left, switching round at each turn. His relatively long hair was damp with sweat, and he dried it with his hand, wiping his hand on his jodhpurs before speaking again. Anyone who, like him, had been deployed here since the beginning of January and had seen the clayey ground transformed into a boundless morass knew the score. The fighting troops’ morale was now being corroded by the savage bombardments, appalling losses and the ongoing stalemate in battle. They couldn’t fetch food or move ammunition without men being killed or wounded. Attempts to relieve the troops or advance in larger groups left the men scattered, decimated or with shattered nerves. They didn’t even have a decent shelter to sleep in. The only safe place in the whole area remained Old Uncle Douaumont. Even if the Frogs had a go at it, it was now 3km behind the actual front, and those 3km made all the difference. But what would happen when the rain came? How would they hold out?

Captain Lauber snorted. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘I see.’

Kroysing’s didactic tone and forceful manner sparked resistance in him. But he was a fair-minded man. Without detailed knowledge of every fold of the terrain and advice from the officers in the trenches, the high-ups had nothing on which to base their decisions. For they stayed at the rear: the higher up they were, the further back they stayed. In this respect, the approach of Hannibal and Caesar had been far superior to that taken in these glorious times.

‘What do you suggest, young man? Tell me straight and don’t sugar the pill.’

‘Strengthening the garrison at Douaumont by an entire ASC battalion,’ replied Kroysing indifferently. He was deep in thought, his eyes on the tip of his shoe, which played with a fallen apple full of worms. Douaumont was big and safe, and had plenty of room. Not a single crack in the casemate or the vaulting over the long passageways. Only the top parts had been demolished: the brickwork, supports, surrounds and earthworks. The concrete had held. It had taken at least 2,000 heavy shells, maybe even 3,000, since 21 February. Hats off to French civil engineering.

Captain Lauber puffed fiercely on his pipe. He’d have to look into it. It was his area. He himself was a civil engineer in uniform. He’d been in Douaumont three times but only ever in the yards and in the eastern armoured tower, never below. Had Lieutenant Kroysing ever measured the thickness of the vaulting? Kroysing shook his head. The weather had never been settled enough for that – too much metal in the air. But he reckoned the concrete ceiling was easily 3m thick. It would make a good impression if the captain came to inspect the depot administered by his sappers and took a few measurements while he was at it.

Captain Lauber’s eyes flashed. It was a very good idea to stick another hundred sappers in Douaumont to relieve the fighting troops. With their own staff, company and battalion commanders, naturally. There were lots of gentlemen sitting about behind the lines, leading a nice life, who had no idea what a cushy number God had given them. At the same time, their men had long since turned into fully functioning front-line soldiers. They hauled barbed wire, trench props and ammunition like sappers, and dug trenches and came under fire almost like infantrymen.

Eberhard Kroysing listened with malicious enjoyment. He couldn’t have put it better himself. Did Captain Lauber have a particular person in his sights? Whom did he want rid of? He surely wouldn’t let on. The higher-up gentlemen liked to play their cards close to their chests.

(As it happened, Captain Lauber’s discerning eye had lit on Herr Jansch, politician and braggart, whom he’d already removed from Lille – lit on him and moved on. Wouldn’t work this time, more was the pity. The artillery – his friend Reinhard – needed the men. Shame.)

Kroysing was almost there. ‘I’m thinking of a Bavarian battalion that my men are working with,’ he said. ‘Their headquarters is in Mangiennes, and the company is a little further forward – or perhaps I should say less far back.’ He effortlessly plucked an apple from a fairly high branch, tossed it in the air and caught it again, before adding that some of them were in any case posted as reserve troops within range of the fort in the direction of Pepper ridge and could stay there. Most of them, however, would need to spend all of the coming weeks building dry dugouts with pumps and drains on the higher slopes. ‘We’ll get in touch with the infantry to tell them where the best spots are within eight days. In the meantime, you could put through a request for the Niggl battalion, Captain, and perhaps tempt the staff with the notion of medals and decorations.’

‘That’ll shut them up and make them obey,’ said Captain Lauber. There was already bad blood between the battle-hardened soldiers at the front and the HQ behind the lines, which had expanded as if it were peacetime. What were men to think who’d spent four or five months being hustled back and forwards at the front, been withdrawn battle-weary and redeployed when refreshed, if they had a look round the communications zone and saw how they lived there? ‘The likes of us would know how to lift the troops’ morale. But it’s better not to think about it too much.’

The two officers looked at each other. Of course it was better to keep quiet about such things. They thought about the Commander-in-Chief, the Kaiser’s son and heir to the throne, who had on occasion turned up in tennis whites when fighting units where marching to the front and waved at them with his racket. Such scenes had been photographed and hawked to the newspapers, and a lot of officers found them perplexing.

Captain Lauber sighed. He was a good soldier, prepared to put everything he had on a German victory. Lieutenant Kroysing was taking his leave now, and that was right and proper. He should of course have the car, which would take him as close as it could to his foxhole. Large parts of the area were under long-range fire.

When Captain Niggl received his death sentence, written on an ordinary piece of paper, to the effect that he would be swapping his comfortable billet in Mangiennes for Douaumont, he thought at first he must have read it wrong. An ASC battalion has no adjutants or staff – just a sergeant major and a couple of clerks to handle its business. Furthermore, Herr Niggl was a Royal Bavarian official and so he liked to be the first to see the battalion’s incoming mail. He sat there in his comfortable house jacket, which could hardly be called a uniform, at one with God, his namesake Saint Aloysius and himself, and stared at the half sheet of draft paper, which was signed by Captain Lauber in Damvillers on behalf of the Sappers GOC and sent him, Niggl, to his death. What in buggery is this supposed to mean? he thought, clasping his heart – his beer-fattened, Bavarian heart from Weilheim. It was bloody ridiculous. He was a captain in the Imperial Reserve and a father with two minor children to look after and a vivacious wife, Kreszenzia, née Hornschuh. There must be some mistake. That often happened in war. People were people and they could easily make mistakes. Nonetheless, he thought he’d better go to see Captain Lauber. He knew the Württemberg man. He’d sort it out with him. He folded the order up, put it in his worn, deerskin wallet and put the wallet in his trouser pocket. No need for anyone to see it just yet. It was easier to deflect danger if you hadn’t talked about it.

He drove there in a state of forced calm. Above his fat cheeks, his shrewd eyes wore a rather assured look. He returned as a man who had seen the serious side of life. That Swabian bastard Lauber had gone puce with anger, the miserable noodle muncher. He’d asked him who he thought he was, if he was there to serve the state or to brighten the place up. Captain Niggl wasn’t really handsome enough for that. And did he think he was the only father in the German army? He told him not bring shame on his men, to keep a stiff upper lip and set a good example to his honest ASC men. Soldiers fought quite differently when they saw that their superior officers, who were raking it in each month, at least put themselves in danger too. He would set out the day after next at 3am with his Third Company. The sapper depot at Douaumont would send him guides. From now on he was answerable to the depot. He’d be signed over to the 10th Army Corps and be part of the garrison at Douaumont. He would now have the opportunity to excel and experience life. Besides, the war wasn’t about to end, and there was no life insurance policy for any German officer regardless of whether he was in Mangiennes, Damvillers or Douaumont. The Fourth Company would stay behind and take charge of the railway troops, but the First and Second Companies would follow when the works required. The works: dry dugouts for the infantry, which constituted the backbone of any defence and might earn him a medal.

Yes, there was nothing for it. He, Alois Niggl, from Weilheim in Upper Bavaria, was going to have to cave in and play the hero.

Pale moonlight. The crescent moon was in its second quarter and didn’t rise until close to midnight. In deep silence, three columns of ASC men moved through Spincourt wood, heavily laden with haversacks, entrenching tools, packages and boxes. They knew the roads, having kept them in good repair. The wood, made up of beeches growing on damp soil, was amazingly dense, torn up in some places by shellfire and undamaged in others, depending on the twists and turns of the front and the artillery positions. The men looked pale. Some of their mouths were quivering so much they couldn’t smoke. Many of the country boys said a rosary. Only a couple of urban big mouths talked like they didn’t care. Hill 310 hadn’t yet appeared on the horizon. They were to meet the guides beneath it at the junction with the road to Bezonvaux at 3am. Every man in that marching column wanted to drag out the time until then – to lengthen every minute and insert new units of time. No one was enjoying the change of scene or the damp, fresh air after the heat. They imagined Douaumont to be a kind of fire-spitting mountain and believed they would now disappear inside its bowels. There were also rumours about a gigantic explosion that had finished off over a thousand men, no one knew how. The sappers who’d been there before, with whom they’d now be dossing down, had told them about that. Many of them had pretended to know further details, including the fact that it could happen again any day. A whole battalion wiped out, the sappers said. It didn’t encourage the men to put one foot in front of another.

By 3am their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloaming. They’d been sitting at the roadside for half an hour on boxes and bulging rucksacks each filled with two rolled-up mats, a coat and lace-up boots. They listened dully to the racket wafting over from the other side of Hill 310. On the top, dim white and red lights danced and flickered. Then three slim figures appeared, armed only with steel helmets and gas mask cylinders, carrying walking sticks made from branches. They eyed the ASC men’s enormous packs with sympathy. An NCO reported to Captain Niggl, who’d already sent his horse back. The sappers took position at the heads of the three columns, and the men marched off in single file along well-trodden footpaths. The dark sky was reflected in the shell holes. The ASC men trudged on one step at a time, leaning on their spades. The sappers exuded calm. No need to worry, they said. There’d be nothing doing at this hour. The German infantry had had enough. The Frogs had got sick of it long ago. And the dead who lay decaying outside Souville, by the battlements at Thiaumont and around the ruins at Fleury weren’t about to bite anyone. The path led downhill into a broad depression, where they briefly had a view of the horizon dimly lit by flares. Machine gun fire rattled away like the hammering of sewing machines. The men at the back were having to puff and stumble to keep up and avoid being overtaken by daylight. The night wind carried sweet and terrible smells. Formless patches of blackness intensified the darkness around them. Slanting moonlight filled the shell holes with light and shadow. Then a soaring peak loomed up, obscuring the view. The men climbed its flank, shivering in the first breath of morning air. That’s Hill 388, the sappers said. The long, shell-pitted rampart, which was no longer a rampart, was still called Fort Douaumont. A tall figure with his cap pushed back on his head stood in the shadow of the great arched doorway, whose shattered masonry was patched up with sandbags. His avid eyes scrutinised the approaching column.

What smells did the men’s reluctant noses pick up? Disintegrating masonry. Human excrement. Spent ammunition. Dried blood.