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We didn’t break; we adapted. The fact that we were only twenty helped us to do that, even though it made other things so difficult. But most important of all, we developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity, which grew, on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced – comradeship in arms.

I’m sitting by Kemmerich’s bed. He is fading more and more visibly. There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing around us.[59] A hospital train has come in, and they are sorting out any of the wounded that can be moved. A doctor goes past Kemmerich’s bed and doesn’t even look at him.

‘Next time round, Franz,’ I tell him.

He lifts himself up on one elbow, propped against the pillow. ‘They’ve amputated my leg.’

So now he has realized after all. I nod and by way of a response I say, ‘You want to be glad that you got away with that.’

He doesn’t say anything.

I carry on talking. ‘It could have been both your legs, Franz. Wegler lost his right arm. That’s a lot worse. And it means you’ll go home.’

He looks at me. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Of course I do.’

He says it again, ‘Do you think so?’

‘Of course you will, Franz. You just have to recover from the operation.’

He signals to me to come a bit closer. I lean over him and he whispers, ‘I don’t reckon I will.’

‘Don’t talk such rubbish, Franz, you’ll see yourself that I’m right in a couple of days. It’s not such a big thing, having a leg amputated. They patch up a lot of worse things here.’

He lifts his hand. ‘Just have a look at my fingers.’

‘That’s all because of the operation. Just get a decent amount of grub into you, and you’ll pick up again. Are they feeding you properly?’

He points to a dish, but it is still half full. I begin to get worked up. ‘Franz, you’ve got to eat. Eating is the main thing. And the food’s pretty good here.’

He shakes his head. After a while he says slowly, ‘I used to want to be a forester.’

I try to reassure him. ‘You still can be. They can make amazing artificial limbs these days – you hardly notice that they aren’t real. They fix them on to the muscles. You can move the fingers on artificial hands and you can use them, you can even write. And besides, they are making improvements all the time.’