Tjaden lifts his head. “And do you know what you are?”
Himmelstoss is disconcerted. “Since when have we become so familiar? I don’t remember that we ever slept in the gutter together?”
He has no idea what to make of the situation. He didn’t expect this open hostility. But he is on his guard: someone has already dinned some rot into him about getting a shot in the back.
The question about the gutter makes Tjaden so mad that he becomes almost witty: “No, you slept there by yourself.”
Himmelstoss begins to boil. But Tjaden gets in ahead of him. He must bring off his insult: “Wouldn’t you like to know what you are? A dirty hound, that’s what you are. I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a long time.”
The satisfaction of months shines in his dull pig’s eyes as he spits out: “Dirty hound!”
Himmelstoss lets fly too, now. “What’s that, you muck-rake, you dirty peat-stealer? Stand up there, bring your heels together when your superior officer speaks to you.”
Tjaden winks solemnly. “You take a run and jump at yourself, Himmelstoss.”
Himmelstoss is a raging book of army regulations. The Kaiser couldn’t be more insulted. “Tjaden, I
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