All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque [70]
"Ah!" says the sister, "but he shouldn't climb out of his bed with plaster bandage. What do you want then?" she says turning to me.
I am in mortal terror at this turn, for I haven't any idea what the things are called professionally. She comes to my help.
"Little or big?"
Shocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: "Well, only quite a little one---"
At any rate it produces the effect.
I get a bottle. After a few hours I am no longer the only one, and by morning we are quite accustomed to it and ask for what we want without any false modesty.
The train travels slowly. Sometimes it halts and the dead are unloaded. It halts often.
Albert is feverish. I don't feel too bad; I have some pain, but the worst of it is that apparently there are still lice under the plaster bandage. They itch terribly, and I cannot scratch myself.
We sleep through the days. The country glides quietly past the window. The third night we reach Herbesthal. I hear from the sister that Albert is to be put off at the next station because of his fever. "How far does the train go?" I ask.
"To Cologne."
"Albert," I say "we stick together; you see."
On the sister's next round I hold my breath and press it up into my head. My face swells and turns red. She stops. "Are you in pain?"
"Yes," I groan, "all of a sudden."
She gives me a thermometer and goes on. I would not have been under Kat's tuition if I did not know what to do now. These army thermometers are not made for old soldiers. All one has to do is to drive the quicksilver up and then it stays without falling again.
I stick the thermometer under my arm at a slant, and flip it steadily with my forefinger. Then I give it a shake. I send it up to 100.2°. But that is not enough. A match held cautiously near to it brings it up to 101.6°.
As the sister comes back, I blow myself out, breathe in short gasps, goggle at her with vacant eyes, toss about restlessly, and mutter in a whisper: "I can't bear it any longer -- "
She notes me down on a slip of paper. I know perfectly well my plaster bandage will not be reopened if it can be avoided.
Albert and I are put off together.
■■
We are in the same room in a Catholic Hospital. That is a piece of luck, the Catholic infirmaries are noted for their good treatment and good food. The hospital has been filled up from our train, there are a great many bed cases amongst them. We do not get examined to-day because there are too few surgeons. The flat trolleys with the rubber wheels pass continually along the corridor, and always with someone stretched at full length upon them. A damnable position, stretched out full length like that;-the only time it is good is when one is asleep.
The night is very disturbed. No one can sleep. Toward morning we doze a little. I wake up just as it grows light. The doors stand open and 1 hear voices from the corridor. The others wake up too. One fellow who has been there a couple of days already explains it to us: "Up here in the corridor every morning the sisters say prayers. They call it Morning Devotion. And so that you can get your share, they leave the door open."
No doubt it is well meant, but it gives us aches in our heads and bones.
"Such an absurdity!" I say, "just when a man dropped off to sleep."
"All the light cases are up here, that's why they do it here," he replies.
Albert groans. I get furious and call out: "Be quiet out there!"
A minute later a sister appears. In her black and white dress she looks like a beautiful tea-cosy. "Shut the door, will you, sister?" says someone.
"We are saying prayers, that is why the door is open," she responds.
"But we want to go on sleeping---"
"Prayer is better than sleeping," she stands there and smiles innocently.