Then I grab the plate with the great pile of cakes and squeeze myself behind the house door. A hiss, a crash, and I gallop off with the plate clamped against my chest with both hands. I am almost in, I run like a deer, sweep round the wall, fragments clatter against the concrete, I tumble down the cellar steps, my elbows are skinned, but I have not lost a single pancake, nor even broken the plate.
About two o’clock we start the meal. It lasts till six. We drink coffee until half-past seven—officers’ coffee from the supply dump—and smoke officers’ cigars and cigarettes—also from the supply dump. Punctually at half-past seven we begin the evening meal. About ten o’clock we throw the bones of the sucking pigs outside the door. Then there is cognac and rum—also from the blessed supply dump—and once again long, fat cigars with belly-bands. Tjaden suggests that it lacks only one thing: Girls from an officers’ brothel.
Late in the evening we hear mewing. A little grey cat sits in the entrance. We entice it in and give it something to eat. And that wakes up our own appetites once more. Still chewing, we lie down to sleep. But the night is bad. We have eaten too much fat. Fresh baby pig is very griping to the bowels. There is an everlasting coming and going in the dug-out.
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