KRIEG (War) by Ludwig Renn

Author:Ludwig Renn [Renn, Ludwig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-07-19T05:00:00+00:00

Wounded

I went through the dead forest. The trees and limbs stood out silvery and bare in the moonlight.

I came to an embankment and then to a wasted place with stretchers and ground sheets covering them. They were the dead.

A red glow came from an opening on the ground.

Above me a piece of shrapnel whined.

I climbed down the steps. To the right were two doctors with bright white carbide lamps working on a thigh. The torso and head lay in shadow.

To the left on a stool moaned Vice Sergeant Hornung, apparently unwounded but maybe having been buried.

I didn’t know what to do and remained standing in front of him.

He looked up, said unnaturally, “Good evening!” and began moving again. He was clothed well although muddy. I did not like him; he was always sarcastic. “Oh, this feeling in my head! Everything is spinning around inside me!”

I heard that as if from afar. I felt something coming over me. A shudder crept over me.

“Should I go back to the company? No, I don’t think so; I should go forward; I was forward.” I wondered if he was only speaking to me. Anyway, I wasn’t able to listen to him. “As the small board lay on my back I wanted to advance to the attack. Ah, no! Naturally, I know what I mean!” That all sounded so malicious and contemptible to me. “My thoughts kept running away from me.” He made a circling movement with his head. That only made my wandering feeling worse.

The doctor went to Hornung. “I have given you something. Now pull yourself together!—And you?” He turned to me. “Weren’t you a runner for Fabian?—Come on now!”

They sat me on a stool. Someone opened the safety pin on my shoulder and removed my sleeve and coat. My shirt was pulled down. I shivered.

“A nice flesh wound! Talk about luck! The splinter has ripped things up nicely—or was it a piece of shrapnel?”

“No, a rifle bullet.”

“That must have come from very close by.”

“About eighty meters, doctor.”

“Ah, you took part in the attack?”

“Not actually. I was waiting with the lieutenant for the rest of the company.” There was a gray fog around me.

“How did the people carry out the attack?”

“Excellently, doctor! They made a complete turnaround from the last time.”

“So? There are terrible wounds among them.”

Behind me Hornung mumbled something but it was lost in the black fog. I held myself completely upright so that it wouldn’t come any closer.

“And now a tetanus shot! Wash his skin here!”

On the right side of my chest the medical orderly washed a small spot with something cold. The doctor puckered the skin and stuck in the needle. I saw nothing more because of the darkness and held myself very stiff.

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