“Yes, everything.”
Tjaden beamed: “What a bean-feast! That’s all for us! Each man gets—wait a bit—yes, practically two issues.”
Then Ginger stirred himself and said: “That won’t do.”
Then we got excited and began to crowd around.
“Why won’t that do, you old carrot?” demanded Katczinsky.
“Eighty men can’t have what is meant for a hundred and fifty.”
“We’ll soon show you,” growled Müller.
“I don’t care about the stew, but I can only issue rations for eighty men,” persisted Ginger.
Katczinsky got angry. “You might be generous for once. You haven’t drawn food for eighty men. You’ve drawn it for the Second Company. Good. Let’s have it then. We are the Second Company.”
We began to jostle the fellow. No one felt kindly toward him, for it was his fault that the food twice came up to us in the line too late and cold. Under shell-fire he wouldn’t bring his kitchen up near enough, so that our soup-carriers had to go much farther than those of the other companies. Now Bulcke of the First Company is a much better fellow. He is as fat as a hamster in winter, but he trundles
7
