All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque [71]
Albert groans again. "Shut the door," I snort.
She is quite disconcerted. Apparently she cannot understand. "But we are saying prayers for you too."
"Shut the door, anyway."
She disappears, leaving the door open. The intoning of the litany proceeds.
I feel savage, and say: "I'm going to count up to three. If it doesn't stop before then I'll let something fly."
"Me too," says another.
I count up to five. Then I take hold of a bottle, aim, and heave it through the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousand pieces. The praying stops. A swarm of sisters appear and reproach us in concert.
"Shut the door!" we yell.
They withdraw. The little one who came first is the last to go. "Heathen," she chirps but shuts the door all the same. We have won.
■■
At noon the hospital inspector arrives and abuses us. He threatens us with clink and all the rest of it. But a hospital inspector is just the same as a commissariat inspector, or any one else who wears a long sword and shoulder straps, but is really a clerk, and is never considered even by a recruit as a real officer. So we let him talk. What can they do to us, anyway---
"Who threw the bottle?" he asks.
Before I can think whether I should report myself, someone says: "I did."
A man with a bristling beard sits up. Everyone is excited; why should he report himself?
"You?"
"Yes. I was annoyed because we were waked up unnecessarily and lost my senses so that I did not know what I was doing."
He talks like a book.
"What is your name?"
"Reinforcement-Reservist Josef Hamacher."
The inspector departs.
We are all curious. "But why did you say you did it? It wasn't you at all!"
He grins. "That doesn't matter. I have a shooting licence."
Then of course, we all understand. Whoever has a shooting license can do just whatever he pleases.
"Yes," he explains, "I got a crack in the head and they presented me with a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible for my actions. Ever since then I've had a grand time. No one dares to annoy me. And nobody does anything to me."
"I reported myself because the shot amused me. If they open the door again to-morrow we will pitch another."
We are overjoyed. With Josef Hamacher in our midst we can now risk anything.
Then come the soundless, flat trollies to take us away.
The bandages are stuck fast. We bellow like steers.
■■
There are eight men in our room. Peter, a curly black-haired fellow, has the worst injury;-a severe lung wound. Franz Wachter, alongside him, has a shot in the arm which didn't look too bad at first. But the third night he calls out to us, telling us to ring, he thinks he has a haemorrhage.
I ring loudly. The night sister does not come. We have been making rather heavy demands on her during the night, because we have all been freshly bandaged, and so have a good deal of pain. One wants his leg placed so, another so, a third wants water, a fourth wants her to shake his pillow;-in the end the buxom old body grumbled bad-temperedly and slammed the doors. Now no doubt she thinks it is something of the same sort and so she is not coming.
We wait. Then Franz says: "Ring again."
I do so. Still she does not put in an appearance. In our wing there is only one night sister, perhaps she has something to do in one of the other rooms. "Franz, are you quite sure you are bleeding?" I ask. "Otherwise we shall be getting cursed again."
"The bandage is wet. Can't anybody make a light?"
That cannot be done either. The switch is by the door and none of us can stand up. I hold my thumb against the button of the bell till it becomes numb. Perhaps the sister has fallen asleep. They certainly have a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day. And added to that is the everlasting praying.
"Should we smash a bottle?" asks Josef Hamacher of the shooting licence.
"She wouldn't hear that any more than the bell."
At last the door opens. The old lady appears, mumbling. When she perceives Franz's trouble she begins to bustle, and says: "Why did not someone say I