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ON THE WESTERN FRONT
 

“Tjaden will report at the Orderly Room in ten minutes.”

Then he steams off with Himmelstoss in his wake.

“I have a feeling that next time we go up wiring I’ll be letting a bundle of wire fall on Himmelstoss’s leg,” hints Kropp.

“We’ll have quite a lot of jokes with him,” laughs Müller.

That is our sole ambition: to knock the conceit out of a postman.

I go into the hut and put Tjaden wise. He disap­pears.

Then we change our possy and lie down again to play cards. We know how to do that: to play cards, to swear, and to fight. Not much for twenty years;—and yet too much for twenty years.

Half an hour later Himmelstoss is back again. No­body pays any attention to him. He asks for Tjaden. We shrug our shoulders.

“Then you’d better find him,” he persists.

“Haven’t you been to look for him?”

Kropp lies back in the grass and says: “Have you ever been out here before?”

“That’s none of your business,” retorts Himmel­stoss. “I expect an answer.”

“Very good,” says Kropp, getting up. “See up

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