The Road Back Read Free Page A

fellows with arm-wounds and white bandages are lining up to march out. The hospital is to be relieved. A doctor is running about examining the newcomers. He orders one chap, whose leg is hanging loose and bent the wrong way at the knee joint, to be taken in at once. Wessling is merely bandaged and remains outside.
    He rouses from his stupor and looks after the doctor.
    "What is he going away for?"
    "Hell be back in a minute," I tell him.
    "But I must go in I I must be operated on!" He becomes suddenly terribly excited and feels for the bandage.
    "That must be stitched up straight away!"
    We try to calm him. He is quite green and sweating with fear: "Adolf, run after him! he must come!"
    Bethke hesitates a moment. But under Wessling's eye there is nothing else for it, though he knows it will be to no purpose. I see him speak with the doctor. Wessling follows him as far as he can with his eyes. He looks terrible as he struggles to turn his head.
    Returning, Bethke makes a detour so that Wessling shall not be able to get a sight of him; he shakes his head, makes the figure 1 with his finger, and with his mouth shapes inaudibly: "One—hour."
    We put on cheerful faces. But who can deceive a dying  peasant? While Bethke is yet telling him that he is to be operated on later, but the wounds must heal a little first, Wessling already knows all. He is silent a moment, then he cries aloud: "Yes, you stand there and are whole—and are going home—and I—I—four years and now this—four  years—and now this——"
    "You're going to the hospital all right, Heinrich," says Bethke, comforting him.
    But he would not.—"Let be."
    Thereafter he does not say much. Nor does he want to be carried in; but to stay outside. The hospital is on a gentle slope, whence one can see far out along the avenue down which we have come. It is all gay and golden. The earth lies there, still and smooth and secure; even fields are to be seen, little, brown-tilled strips, right close by the hospital. And when the wind blows away the stench of blood and of gangrene one can smell the pungent ploughed earth. The distance is blue and everywhere is most peaceful, for from here the view is away from the Front.
    Wessling is still. He is observing everything most nar rowly. His eyes are clear and alert. He is a farmer and at  home with the country, he understands it better and other wise than we. He knows that he must leave it now. So he  will miss nothing; nor does he take his eyes from it again.  Minute by minute he grows paler. At last he makes a move ment and whispers: "Ernst—"
    I bend to his mouth. "Take out my things," he says.
    "There's plenty of time for that, Heinrich."
    "No, no——Get on!"
    I spread them out before him. The pocket-book of frayed calico, the knife, the watch, the money—one gets to know these things.
    Loose in the pocket-book is the picture of his wife.
    "Show me," he says.
    I take it out and hold it that he can see it. A clear, brownish face. He considers it. After a while he whispers: "So that is finished," and his lips quiver. At last he turns away his head.
    "Take it," he says. I do not understand what he means, but I will not ask him more questions, so I thrust it into my
    pocket. "Take those to her—" he looks at the other things. I nod. "And tell her—" he looks at me with a strange great gaze, murmurs, shakes his head and groans. I try desperately to understand, but now he only gurgles. He twitches, breathes more heavily, more slowly, with pauses, slackening—then once more, very deep and sighing—and suddenly has eyes as if he had been blinded, and is dead.
    Next morning we are in the front trenches for the last time. Hardly a shot is fired. The war is ended. In an hour we must pull out. We need never come back here again! When we go we go for ever.
    What there is to be destroyed we destroy. It is little enough—only a couple of dugouts. Then comes the order to retreat.
    It is a strange moment. We stand side by